My mother and I like to watch nightly news, usually together, but on one particular night, something about “Anderson Cooper 360” hit a soft spot, and it wasn’t his dashing good looks or respectable decision to refuse Just for Men’s Touch of Gray. As the program ended, I turned to my mother and said, “These stories are really depressing,” and she replied almost as if scripted, “I couldn’t agree more.”
With the news of a renegade police officer, Al-Qaeda threats on an American consulate and North Korean nuclear tests captivating our nation, it’s nearly impossible to be optimistic about the state of our nation. You could go on forever using buzz words like budget, hostage and doping, and a cheerless story would come to mind. But it’s this news that shapes our dismal hopes for our nation, as well as community.
For instance, as I watched the state of the union address, all I could do was laugh and think, “Good luck with that” as Obama laid out his plan. I was even more skeptical when immediately afterward partisanship was an issue. But I don’t like thinking this way, and we don’t necessarily have to. Maybe we read and view bleak news because there’s only bleak news. But I don’t like thinking that way either. If France and Britain’s same-sex marriage bills currently going through France’s senate and Britain’s parliament were covered comprehensively as key pieces of legislation, then maybe these laws could be seen as a movement for other nations to join. But I almost didn’t even hear about it. It’s these stories that grace the scrolling feed at the bottom of your favorite news station, rarely becoming headline stories. It’s these stories that can inspire change and renewal in our society.
The bombardment of dreary stories is seemingly relentless, much like the bombings on the Syrian border. The fact that I just even equated these things as second nature makes me sad. Maybe it’s not that news stations can’t provide uplifting news, but that viewers are accustomed to hearing of tragedy. Sometimes, it’s nice to not hear about nuclear weaponry development, and to instead hear that UK researchers are developing a tool to understand the language of babies. For the sake of our sanity, or at least mine, it’s important to hear about what advances are being made for society’s greater good, and not always to hear a body count, even if it’s just a brief break. Innovation often goes unreported, and as much as it is important to be informed of sufferings, we occasionally need hopeful stories, if not often in our news to encourage progress and reform.