News

I was wondering if it would make a difference to call this post “Good news” or “Bad news”. Probably not since most of my readers (thank you for stopping by!) don’t get here because the headline catches their attention, after all, this is not a newspaper.
People seem to read more bad news though, or at least they seem to be more drawn to them. Is this why there are so many bad news or is it the other way around? Supply and demand – if people wanted to read good news, the papers wouldn’t be full of bad news.

Why do we want bad news then? Is it the relieving confirmation of not having it so bad after all, is it a wake-up call if we get too lazy-minded, or is it pure hunger for sensation, a daily dose of adrenaline? Any way, whatever it used to be is probably gone. We don’t even think about the news we want, we take the news we get and they’re usually not good.
The more bad news we receive the more we are becoming numb to them – murder, violence, aggression, haven’t we seen it all? Another suicidal bomber, rape, high school massacre, are we even flinching on our couches as the images flicker by on our TV screen, are the words in the newspaper even forming images or are they just words, and do we still see red when we hear the word blood?
Bad news make good news, that’s media reality.

The other day I read an article about statistics, precisely statistics that stated how many violent incidents have been prevented or dissolved because of students’ intervention at schools and colleges.

I started thinking about how many years ago it used to be widely accepted and even standard (and as dreadful as it is, it still is in many places) to punish children physically if they had gone wrong. Spanking children used to be common in most families and at school.
At some stage, spanking children in school became a felony, and if parents take it too far hopefully social services will knock on their door and take care of the situation (given it’s one of the places where not everybody looks away when children are being abused).
Why did that situation change? It changed because of the realization that harm causes harm, and that an abused child will not grow up to be physically, mentally and emotionally healthy.

Another change took place in many companies. From strict hierarchies, many superiors switched to the friendlier approach of employee treatment since studies had shown that constructive criticism and positive feedback result in higher motivation and integrity, whereas complaints and measures which could be interpreted as punishment will lead to the opposite.

Of course, I have no idea about social policy and maybe I’m simplifying things, but this seems easy to me to put together:
If people react positively to positive feedback and become (auto)aggressive and unhealthy when receiving negative feedback, how can anybody conclude that an overload of aggression and violence, in short: bad news, would get people motivated enough to actually get up and do something.
I don’t mean off the couch and on the next plane to Madland to become a freedom fighter. But maybe we could feel a bit more connected with our environment and the people surrounding us, the community.

If we watched a fair amount of people in our community helping others out, stepping in or getting involved where involvement is required, wouldn’t we feel more motivated to do so as well? Wouldn’t we be more likely to be aware of what’s going on around us? Wouldn’t that maybe even change the standard?

Since 2004, 1,687 reports have been made to a hotline in Colorado that resulted in crime prevention or intervention. That’s 1,687 cases of people who cared and who didn’t look away.
So yea, you may say I’m a dreamer. But I’m not the only one.