One memory I have of my maternal grandfather came from an instance when we were watching the local news together. They usually made time in their house to watch the evening and nightly news, though I don't recall him frequently commenting on the details of what was on the news. At the beginning of that particular newscast he encouraged me to count the number of negative stories and compare it to the number of positive stories that were being reported. As you would expect the ratio was somewhere in the 8:1 to 10:1 range. He never let me know if there was a specific lesson that he wanted me to get from the exercise, but the experience did stick with me. I've wrestled with myself over the years regarding what the exercise proved.
One thing I am certain it proved is that the media makes the world far more scary than it really should be. To allow a newscast to define your understanding of the world is to imagine a world that is far more terrifying than the reality for the average person. There aren't murderers lurking around every corner. Most people want to do good, or at least be thought of as someone who does good. Those good things don't get reported, though. I am not saying that most people are good. People are sinners--the whole lot of them, including myself--but people also have humanity and by and large want to do good.
Another thing I think it proved is that the things that are noteworthy sort of establish the opposite about what society is like. Things that happen all of the time aren't considered newsworthy. As an example, a news crew could conceivably go to a city rescue mission seven days out of the week and find positive things that people do for others in need, but if someone is stabbed at that rescue mission one day out of the year that bad thing is the newsworthy event largely because it is both abnormal and consequential.
Something that I've given a lot of thought to is what positive news would look like. Usually when I see a positive story on the news it comes across as either a puff piece or mildly propagandistic. I don't know how you'd report on positive stories in a better way, though. Maybe I'm so cynical I can't properly process a good, positive news story. Is the problem me?
I've also given some recent thought to the news that my grandfather had been exposed to in his lifetime. I've been watching a documentary on the Vietnam War over the past few months, and I'm coming to understand that the sixties were as much a time of upheaval as the current day. This is to say nothing of time of the Great Depression and World War II. So, when he was discussing the news with me he had a perspective I did not have regarding how scary news could be. Maybe he was preparing me for a time period like the current one when there's a lot in the news to discourage a person. If so, I think it worked.
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