Y’all, we are in trouble. Not because T.I. is in jail again (sucks), the gingerbread donuts from Dunkin’ are only seasonal (the worst) or Frasier barely has any airtime left on late-night TV (kill me now). We are in trouble because we love negativity. We eat this junk up for breakfast, lunch, dinner and sometimes even dessert. In fact, you probably kept reading because I introduced a problem in the first sentence. This toxic strategy permeates every nook and cranny of the media and you know what? I am not down.
The wise philosopher Dwayne Michael Carter, Jr. once said, “Don’t ask me what’s wrong, ask me what’s right.” Everyone knows that the more you focus on the positive, the more rainbows and unicorns enter your life. The problem with these things, other than their odd appearance in “Anchorman”? They’re boring. Stories without conflict, drama and usually some sort of negativity are skipped over. No one wants to read 300 words on a baby seal, but they do want to read 300 words about a baby seal that escaped from an evil circus and founded its own aquatic kingdom.
Now, stories about overcoming adversity are inarguably positive and visible in the media. The problem is the framing. It seems that our news organizations believe the only way to capture people’s attention is through introducing the most terrifying, horrific and despicable aspects of a story first. If you’re lucky, they’ll spend the last 20 seconds talking to a hero or survivor. How does news like this make us feel? I don’t even want to turn it on, and it’s my future career! As media consumers, we shouldn’t have to keep asking “What is the world coming to?” every time we turn on the news.
“What is the world coming to?” has a variety of connotations. You may exclaim it after watching the evening news, catching two minutes of Montel, reading the words of the perpetually-disgruntled Gawker writers or discovering that just after pouring cereal into a bowl, you are out of milk. These things likely elicit fear, disbelief, anger and outrage (when all you want in this life are some blasted Lucky Charms). But, instead of spiraling into a black abyss as so many believe, there is actually a lot of good left in this little planet. By making light of all the positive things that are going on, we can change the connotation of “What is the world coming to?” into something to inspire and be celebrated.
As Northwestern students, we already do a decent job of this. Most of the stories presented in our various media outlets have an optimistic tilt and our social justice groups, who are obviously working toward positive ends, are gaining more publicity. That’s not to say we should sugarcoat the news, though. Conflict is necessary in any story. It’s what this column is built on. Conflict makes things exciting and real, but like GOOD Magazine, the USA Today Kindness blog, Oprah’s new television network and DIDDYBLOG are proving, it can benefit from a positive spin. These outlets have already created space for good news, and I’m excited to see who picks it up next. T.I.’s got some time.
Alex Hollander is a Medill senior. She can be reached at [email protected].
