Wednesday, December 17, 2008

A lethal dose of negativity.


I used to watch local news on television every night.
And in the morning while I prepare for work, the tv in my room is tuned in to BBC or CNN, thus, even when my eyes aren’t glued to the screen I can still hear the news from the bath room door.

For the past days though, I had opted to watch DVD and followed more prime-time series than I would like to admit.
Yeah, I know that it is not healthy to invest so much time and energy on things that, in the end, really have no weight or bearing on what happens in the real world. But there is nothing wrong with wanting to get away sometimes.

Of course, I still watch the news. That is important, in my opinion, since everyone needs to see the world for what it is and to get the right perspective. But this is becoming more and more a tiring exercise. Somehow, I find it disappointing to read the newspapers and watch the news programs, because I only encounter so much misplaced negativity.

Don’t get me wrong, as it is the media’s prerogative to publish or air these things, and they have a journalistic duty to tell the truth, however ugly or disheartening it might be. But I think, a lot of what is being reported nowadays is done in the spirit of pandering.

However, journalists don’t have total control over how their reports affect the landscape. Because ultimately, people will make their own conclusions, no matter how many sides of a story are presented. We are by nature selective and will take in and retain information as we pleased. Just like when I buy a newspaper, I don’t normally read it from cover to cover, instead, I read what I want, and skip the stuff I don’t want to read.

But I also believe, that not everything that happens in the world is bad. Good things happen, and good values are alive and well. So, can they maybe help increase awareness of the good?

Then possibly, I might be more inclined to stop playing online games, or discard following the mushy tv series, or better yet, put off that movie marathon for another day.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Its unfortunate, but tradgedy sells... they may throw in a human interest story once in a while to lighten things up. When we feel the world is ending, we are glued to the tv, and frankly that sells more soda-pop and bubble gum (ie commercial sponsors)... and sponsors are one of the two reasons we even have tv...

the other is for the powers that be to control us, program our brains to their whims, and control information sent to us... we are programmed through tv and lied to as well using it... so,...

its not there to entertain us or educate us.. or else there would be intelligent entertainment and educational content...

its to sell us bubble gum and dumb us down, and its doing that rather well.... or it would be phased out and we would be sold shiney new watermellons to look at instead....

Yes, im a tad paranoid and angry, but thats not becasue i experienced too much flowers and love as a child... the world is full of bad powerful people and we have to make the best of it and love one another...

:)

Ed

Sid Brechin said...

I don't how many times I have been at events or part of events that the media covered. In most cases what the media reported and what really happened were about as alike as an aardvark and an ostrich. You would never know they were the same event.

My brother once commented after I had been interviewed at the scene of a subway disaster where 3 people died. He was laughing when he saw it on the news. When I asked why he answered. " Can you ever tell you worked for intelligence" I asked him why. He said "You were very polite. You answered all their questions. And you didn't tell them a damn thing but they walked away thinking you had said so much they broadcast it."

priyavamada & mohammed place said...

hello odette thank you for the comment .. Wish you and you family a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year filled with love, heatlh and many blessings .. Starlight

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