What's News?

1. I was reflecting on how television newscasts will often report items such as "In country A, X occurred." Then the news will talk about how horrible X is, go on and on, and you can even see opinion polls showing how concerned people are that X occurred in country A. Often, X is something about which the average Joe had previously known nothing. Often, the newscasts telling people that X occurred in country A tell us nothing about the extent to which X occurs in other countries, or whether X may even occur in other countries to an even worse extent than in country A. Perhaps X has been occurring in country B for years, and something should be done about it. Why do newscasts do this? There could be a variety of reasons, I would only be speculating were I to try to explain why this occurs. But it is fully within my own ability to be a bit more perceptive when I watch the news. 2. I hope the vast readership of The Greg Jones Blog has noticed that I try to keep things pretty positive in what I write. I have often heard people lament over the media not covering positive things that occur. In the fitness center today someone turned on the TV, and CNN reported a new website at www.happynews.com. This site reports only positive news. One of the CNN commentators was a bit skeptical, saying while people say they want positive news, she does not believe it. Go check out the web site when you have some time.