If I had a tenner for everytime somebody has told me that there is too much ‘negative’ news about this or that, then I would now have enough money not to need to sit here typing away.
The latest was at a conference on multiculturalism where once again the media was the focus of attention from a group of people working hard to reduce tensions and make us all get along together in peace. Generally the mood was that the media makes things worse by banging on about bad news connected with ethnic minorities. And at the moment that means Muslims.
“Why can’t the news show more positive images of all the good work we are doing?” said one passionate inter-faith activist.
My answer is simple. News is about events that are important and topical and generally those events are worrying and often show negative aspects of human life. We live in an imperfect world and the jobĀ of news is to report it. You can get positive images from other parts of the media and your own lives.
I have more faith in Muslims than the multiculturalists. I think they are as capable as anyone else of intelligent debate and perfectly capable of reconciling difference with common responsibilities.
Or at least they will be if the journalism is of a high enough standard and if we are allowed to have a full and open debate that includes the negatives.
Charlie Beckett
November 17th, 2006
Good news is no news
Good news is no news
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Delighted to find your blog. I agree with you and would add that there is enough spin by Governments giving us plenty of “positive”. Anyway what reduces tension is discussing the “negative” rather than pushing it under the carpet.
This is coming in insanely late, but I’d just like to say that though I agree that we live in an imperfect world, the media does not report what is truly ‘wrong’ with it. Instead, it reports small symptoms of much deeper seated issues. This serves merely to foster shallow thinking amongst the populace, makes many feel powerless and fearful, and also helps guide the masses towards believing that these events are truly the scourge of society.
What we need is a real (not necessarily positive) picture of the world which examines deep rooted problems with hyper-materialism, corporatism, and lack of foresight. Positive news would also be included if it genuinely moved towards betterment in a large sector. Celebrities would have to be avoided.
It is a self defeating process. The people are used to sensationalism and not thinking beyond this; thus the only ‘bad’ news they will give is sensationalist, meaningless, and distracting. It becomes more and more like this as people are sucked deeper and deeper in.