Prophets of Doom

Prophets of Doom

That’s what journalists have become – prophets of doom. An’ their publishers would then be the beneficiaries of profits of doom – same thing, I suppose. Everywhere you look there’s bad news. That’s what makes good news so strikin’ when you see it. It’s so rare that you do a double take upon comin’ acrosst it. Makes me wonder what the news would be like if the protocol was reversed. It might just re-introduce the true shock value of hearin’ about the bad things in the news. We might not be just so nonchalant about the bad things that happen on a daily basis.

Me an’ the missus was just talkin’ about that this mornin’ an’ that’s the conclusion we come to anyways. Well just think about it. We’d get so used to hearing about good an’ happy things we might just start to think that’s the norm. An’ don’t think we’d get bored with it neither! By the time you got finished readin’ the news each mornin’ or evenin’ you’d have such a smile on yer kisser it’d be hard to wipe it off.

An’ I ain’t the only one sayin’ it neither! Back in 1983 Anne Murray sang a song about it. I remember it well. It was called ‘A Little Good News’. We all said a collective ‘Yeah’, and then just as collectively forgot about it as it faded into the dingy world of bad news. So much for that!

Are we really so tuned in to other people’s misery that we can’t resist it or is our obsession the product of the journalists and’ their journals? Well, the likes of Rupert Murdock would have us believe so. Otherwise he wouldn’t go to the lengths he does to produce this garbage. He has people fallin’ under the bus left, right an’ center in pursuin’ this tack, an’ still continues. Of course this ain’t new at all. It’s all been goin’ on for the longest time. Maybe that’s it. Bad an’ news are somehow linked together. We’re so used to it that we’ve come to expect it. An’ if we don’t get our daily fix o’ misery we think somethin’ is missin’.

It’s not that there ain’t enough good news to go around. When you start rootin’ it out, there’s lots of it – everywhere you look. What you can’t find is the journalist who will write about it or the news media that will publish it. It’s really too bad because the benefits of publishing good news would be like givin’ folks a happy pill as a daily diet. You’d have people smilin’ an’ laughin’ all day long. There’d be a story to capture somebody’s fancy an’ put them in a good frame o’ mind. An’ when a bad news story is told, the shock value would smack us right in the face, restorin’ it in our minds in its proper perspective. Now that in itself is a good news story. At least that’s how it seems to me from up here on the top shelf.

Just sayin’.