Is it just me or has there been quite a lot of terrible things happening around the world as of late? Suicide bombers in Israel. Appalling religious unrest in India. The supposed alliance of Iran, Iraq and North Korea, chillingly coined as the "axis of evil" by President George Bush. The Enron bankruptcy scandal. The list goes on and on. Based on these events and many others, I find myself almost afraid to watch the news lately in fear of what's going to happen next. After carefully reading one bleak news item after another I slowly dipped into short periods of despair. I could only assume that at this point in world history our populace cannot be in the cheeriest of moods. I resolve to look back on the previous news events in order find that glimmer of hope within. The Winter Olympics. A tried and true melting pot of world competition brewing inspiring stories of physical stamina and heartfelt determination. What did I find? Bribery scandals, failed drug tests and accusations of illegal total blood transfusions in the peaceful hamlet known as the Olympic Village. I press on and shift gears, moving on to the coverage of the recent Grammy Awards. Music world shocked and dismayed by upset win of the soundtrack for the motion picture O Brother Where Art Thou, as album of the year. At this point I decide that this may not be a battle I can win. But then it hits me. The one thing that the world needs to get itself back on its proverbial feet. A little girl trapped in a well.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not asking for parents across the world to start throwing their children into wells as a sacrifice to the gods in hopes that things will get better. What I'm saying is that newscasters need to make a concentrated effort to show the world that as much as there are bad things happening, there are also some good things as well. Find those stories that help balance out the good with the bad. Trapped kids rescued from wells. Octuplets born to local celebrity. Boy Scout troop foils bank robbery. Dachshund's named Wiggles, traveling from Florida to Alaska to retrieve lost chew toy. It's been my perception lately that newscasts have been searching for what's bad in the world and not what's good.
It would be a pretty naïve notion to expect newscasts to start hiding all the bad events in the world from us so that we can still maintain some semblance of happiness. That would be censorship and I'm not ready to live in an Orwellian society just yet. The last thing I want to see is Fox broadcasting the new "Happy Happy Fun Times News Hour" hosted by news anchor Carrot Top. But I would like to think that as easy as it is to report on the terrible things in the world, I would like to think it's just as easy to find the pleasant things as well. Maybe I'm just a silly web columnist who needs to see a little bit of that silver lining every once in a while amidst a sky filled with dark stormy clouds. Yikes! I think I got a cavity just writing that sentence.
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