Schism

Preview - Reasons For Hope - Introduction part 2

THE BAD NEWS BUSINESS

The short answer to the question of why we tune into bad news is that we have no other option.  Mainstream and independent media present us with news stories that are overwhelmingly negative.  The trend is so strong that anything positive is labeled as fluff or human interest and is far from the front page or is at the end of a news broadcast.  But why?

Many theories try to explain why mainstream media focuses on the negative, with the most prominent being that bad news simply sells better than good news.  Journalists state that they look for stories with conflict, an essential part of telling an interesting story.  They believe that negative news has more inherent conflict, but this is a short-sighted attitude.  Negative news doesn’t have more inherent conflict, only more apparent conflict.  This kind of attitude reveals one of the biggest problems and reasons that our news is focused on the negative: journalists don’t have time to do the most important part of their jobs.

Writing on the surface of bad news is the easiest, quickest way to produce a news story.  The who, what, when, where, how and sometimes why of a disaster or scandal can be explained quickly and delivered on a tight deadline.  And these deadlines that reporters must meet are getting shorter and shorter, as much of the news is now broadcast first on the web or by social media. Most journalists do not have the time to dig into the history of a problem to give us a sense of context when they must finish a story in minutes.  Bad news is easier because it takes less time and research.

And it is this research that not only provides perspective and lessens the pain of the bad news we feel we are drowning in, but it also shows the interesting, motivating conflict behind the successes we have achieved together.  The conflict that makes the positive stories captivating takes more work to explain, as it isn’t the simple clash of one religion versus another or one person’s greed leading to the ruin or death of many others.  Instead, when we take the time to look thoroughly at the issues that trouble us, we see that they stretch back into the past and that we have been struggling with these problems for as long as humanity has existed.  And more importantly, we see that we have been fighting these problems and are beating them.

Sometimes we see great battles or defining moments, but more often, we see the incremental progress of individuals doing what they knew was right.  What looking into the history of our problems reveals is a rich history of heroes fighting for what is right.

A STORY OF HEROES

While this book is intended to provide context for the problems we face and provide a sense of hope that we can overcome these problems, it is, at its core, a book of stories about heroes.

When we look back at the origins of the problems we currently face, we see that they stretch past the beginnings of written history.  Details of slavery are shown in ancient artwork.  Evidence of war, disease and malnutrition are preserved in prehistoric graves.  The problems we face may seem overwhelming, but they are not new to us.  And neither is the will to fight against them.

In some cases, one individual may have stood alone against an oppressive system.  Against other wrongs, a line of resistance might stretch across continents and generations.  But what is most important is that people realized something was wrong and they fought against it.  William Wilberforce spent his life fighting slavery. John Muir struggled to preserve wild spaces in the United States.  Marie Curie suffered great deprivation in order to focus on research that has enabled us to see illness deep in our bodies.  Rachel Carson dedicated herself to creating a world where we could raise healthy children.

The true context of the bad news we are bombarded with is that there have been generations of heroes, armed with a sense that people different from themselves deserved compassion.  They accessed a growing knowledge about the world around them.  They fought against these problems and have handed a world to us where our troubles are in decline.  Wars are smaller and less frequent.  It is possible to erase slavery within our lifetimes.  We have conquered diseases that once threatened us all.  Racism is declining and religious tolerance is on the rise.  Our greater understanding of the environment gives us the ability to ensure that our planet will continue to support us.  None of these achievements would be possible without the work and sacrifice of those who came before us.

Most surely, our problems are not to be regarded lightly.  There is much work still to be done.  We have not won the battles we face, but our hardships are not new and our access to knowledge and sense of compassion are growing.  These stories of pain and suffering are not in their dark beginnings, as we might be lead to believe, but they are closer to happy endings, thanks to the heroes who have been fighting to make the world better, to make it a place of hope.

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(Author's note:  Next...Ending the world's oldest attrocity, forever)