As part of my job here at the Odyssey I have to find a news article and write about it once month. I decided before writing my first that I would only choose uplifting and encouraging stories, little did I know what a chore that would be. In today's society we thrive on bad news.. We are drawn to depressing news. This is the reason the media covers horrible stories over uplifting ones. Why do we want to read, listen and watch news about something devastating that has happened? I believe it is because we have so much anger stored up in us that when one tiny little story is released that upsets us we go off the deep end and post multiple rants about this event on our social media.
I mean if I really wanted to get views on my article, heck I would be writing about a gorilla right now. If not the gorilla then there are countless other articles I could write about that are "hot topics" in the world today. I recently read an article about a group of scientests who tested the theory of if people are really drawn to bad new more than good news. I have linked that article here: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140728-why-is-all-the-news-bad
Am I saying the media should never post any upsetting news? No. We need to know some of the horrors that are happening in the world today. We should not be blind to real world issues. What ticks me off is when I see people getting upset over something very small. Is that really where we want to spend our time and energy? Going to the media and writing about why we should never go to Starbucks or why we should never buy from such and such company. We need to be spending our time on something meaningful like stopping abortion, sex trafficking, abuse, and so many other things. We need to focus on those issues, because those are the issues that are effecting us today and will effect the future generation. The fact that Starbucks changed their cups to all red instead of saying Merry Christmasis not going to affect anyone's future. So let's stop getting upset over little things and start focusing on how to end issues that really matter.
