We've all heard the expression "No news is good news", and its true. Especially if we are talking about the news on TV and in newspapers where all we see is negativity. The news reports on terrible things to scare us and shock us into watching and newscasters will often go out and create their own murders if none are happening assumes this blogger. We are disturbed by these things but yet we cant look away, like a Vern Troyer sex tape. The news has the power to twist any feel-good story into a heart wrenching horror film. If there is a story about a missing boy they instantly add "...the boy is suspected eaten by wolves." I see no value in pointing out the negatives for however many hours a day they waste of television bandwidth.
A recent headline reads "More road closures as Gardiner gets weekend face lift" (Source: CTV.ca) focusing on the few roads that are closed rather than the thousands and thousands of roads that are not closed. They also use question marks abhorrently often to create a sense of uncertainty without any actual fact. "Are your kids smoking crack rocks in grade school?" You don't know, and that's how they get you. Here is a study that linked watching the news to anxiety and other negative psychological effects: Article . Its not hard to find something terrible to worry about, news, please stop; you have no value. People like to feel good, which is why happy songs are more popular than angry songs and why happy people have more friends than sad people.
My suggestion (as a positive person) is to make a competing news source that only focuses on the positives. "100 dead in Uganda"? more like"32 million still alive in Uganda!" "Man loses leg in accident"? more like "Man saves money on pants". Just goes to show, some news can be good news.
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"society has a vested interest in considerable losses and catastrophes. These wars, famines, floods and quakes meet well-defined needs. Man wants chaos. In fact, he has to have it. Depression, strife, riots, murder… all this dread. We're irresistibly drawn to that almost orgiastic state created out of death and destruction. It's in all of us. We revel in it. Sure, the media tries to put a sad face on these things, painting them up as great human tragedies. But we all know the function of the media has never been to eliminate the evils of the world – no! Their job is to persuade us to accept those evils and get used to living with them"
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