TIME OUT FOR GOOD NEWS


If ever there were a time for a “time out” it’s right now.  I’m talking about a time out from the news.  How much bad news can anyone take?

As a former network news correspondent I know first hand how headlines are crafted and stories are chosen.  Sadly, I know that if tragedy gets “bigger” the story gets “better.”

Now, the entire country, if not the world, has a migraine from a steady downpour of bad news with no Advil in sight.

I work in an agency with two large screen TVs and constant background noise about “a new stock market low” and “the largest unemployment number since the Depression.”  How are we going to get out this depression if everyone is depressed?

I say the newscasters should suck it up and start finding something positive to talk about.  I’m not talking about making up the news, but rather finding some nugget of news that is hopeful and delivering that news to audiences starving for it on a regular basis.  I give Erin Burnett a lot of credit.  She’s this sharp-as-a-pistol former Goldman Sachs-er on CNBC and NBC who both calls it as she sees it yet manages to always include a ray of hope.  Go, girl!

I hate being cynical cause it ultimately doesn’t get you very far, but if network correspondents were paid less and worried more for their jobs they just might think twice about how the news they shape impacts their audience.  Will that news begin to instill confidence or rip the last shred of confidence we have out from under us?

Do I have confidence in this country?  I do.  But, I think everyone, including the news-givers, has to buckle up cause it’s going to be a bumpy ride.  Obama is a good guy/straight talker/deep thinker.  We need to give him the chance he needs to re-route this runaway train.  But, we also need the news that we constantly hear and see and twitter about start to change so that we finally believe there’s actually light at the end of the tunnel.

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