Is Good News A Myth?

January 24, 2008, 12:00 pm; posted by
Filed under Articles, Chloe, Featured  | No Comments

I check the news daily, but I rarely read any of it. It’s not that it’s bad writing (though it is) or that it’s slanted reporting (though it is). It’s not even that I’m bored with it (though I am). The reason I haven’t been reading the news is because it gives me nightmares. It makes me sick to read the headlines of FOX News and CNN, because their style of reporting is more like a parade of freakishly heinous crimes rather than anything resembling journalistic integrity.

I took a sampling this week of the headlines on the two sites. One day I had to copy nearly every single headline. These are just a few exemplary examples of the daily dose of bad news:

Sri Lanka clashes kill 59 rebels
Cops arrest 66 in online prostitution sting
Stabbed Woman, 4 kids found dead in burning home
Cops: Mom put son in oven as punishment (with video)
Bad Day: Doc delivers baby, watches house burn down
Macedonian army helicopter crash kills 11 (with photos)
Man found with maggots in eyes dies
Marine slaying crime scene photos

Our world is fallen. We can’t close our eyes to the fact that these types of things happen every day. However, I cannot stand any longer for their use as entertainment. The only reason news agents write articles like the above is because people read them. If it’s not bloody and bizarre, it’s not worth reading. It’s like ambulance chasers, or people who slow down at the scene of a car crash, trying to spot a mangled body or some bits of gore. It’s sick. There’s no other word for it.

But there’s some good news! Literally! I went searching for something to ease my discomfort after reading those headlines, and I found the Good News Network. GNN was started by Geri Weis-Corbley, a TV news producer who was exhausted by the inundation of bad news in her profession. Now it boasts such lines as “Johnny Depp donates $2M to Children’s hospital,” and “Couple reunited after 60 years apart since the war.”

This is what I was looking for. It’s just good news — in business, civics, earth, family life, health, recreation, and other fields. So if you feel burdened by the daily news reports, visit GNN. It’s a refresher and a reminder that though our world is fallen, good things still do happen.


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