From a psychology standpoint, I suppose I understand that their mission is to focus on the juicier and more sensational bits. In general, that's what draws people in. It just causes me to wonder if there happen to be good things occurring in our society.
For example, in the first five minutes of a local newscast tonight, here's what they told me about.
1. Bank robbers escaping from a downtown Chicago prison, with a focus on how the trail has gone cold in the search
2. The death of a NIU freshman at the hands of fraternity hazing
3. A Chicago fire that is now looking suspiciously like a murder
We went on to talk about less sensational topics for a minute, although still in a dramatic tone (CTA fare hikes, blizzard-like conditions), before moving back to Newtown and the NRA's response to all of the talk about gun control. Revert to sports news: the Bears have another injury, Joaquin Noah is leaving his wild ways behind, so on and so forth.
Finally, thirty minutes in, for the final story of the newscast, we were graced with a blip about how a tweet from Ann Curry is causing random acts of kindness. I'm not sure if we even glossed over the topic for 30 seconds before the newscast was over.
There's constant debates about how newsworthy, factual or accurate our news actually is - I'm not getting into that argument. This isn't about agenda-setting and persuasion. This is about how I'd love to see the lead story on my local news sway a little more positive and a little less homicide and arson. At least once in a while.
Post a Comment