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Charlie Beckett

November 17th, 2006

Good news is no news

2 comments

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

Charlie Beckett

November 17th, 2006

Good news is no news

2 comments

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

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.

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Charlie Beckett

Posted In: Journalism

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