The author, John Marek, is a writer and CEO of the Anson Economic Development Partnership.
In my column on missing the bus and the Xenia tornado a couple of weeks ago, I mentioned how important the evening news was to family life in the ’70s. Our household’s preferred source for local news was WTOL-TV in Toledo. I’m not sure whether that was because of their superior coverage of events or because they came on right after “The Big Show/Dialing for Dollars,” and we were too lazy to walk across the room to change the channel. Either way, sometime around the middle of the decade – I want to say 1975, but I could be off by a year or two – the station began running teasers for a “new way to watch the news.” The promos were vague but promised something thrilling and unknown would happen during the news broadcast starting on a particular date. I was intrigued and, dare I say … excited.
I speculated wildly to my parents about what the surprise could be and waited with real anticipation for the magical date to arrive. At the appointed hour of the appointed day, the reality failed to meet the expectations of a 12-year-old boy. I was thinking androids, possibly on spaceships, but what WTOL did was still pretty groundbreaking in hindsight. Rather than broadcast from an elaborately staged studio, Toledo 11 News was presented live from the newsroom. The anchor sat at what appeared to be his actual work desk, and there were people in the background typing, huddling, talking on the phone and performing other ostensibly newsy functions. Even then, I wondered how much of it was play-acting for the camera, but the idea behind the optics was brilliant; we are a legitimate journalistic operation, and the other stations are a bunch of actors reading lines.
While the local news in those days featured its fair share of shootings, fires, robberies and car crashes, there was also a sense of community engagement, the belief that the efforts of the news crew were ultimately leading toward making the city a better, happier, more vibrant place to live. Of course, it was all about ratings at the end of the day, but that point was never quite as explicit as it seems today.
The calculus began to change with the proliferation of cable TV in the ’80s. Upstart mega-news organizations like CNN were less interested in journalistic integrity and more interested in keeping eyeballs glued to the screen. The best way to do that was to appeal to the audience’s more prurient nature. “If it bleeds, it leads” soon morphed into “Let’s watch it bleed out for several hours.”
In 1982, Don Henley wrote “Dirty Laundry,” a song about the uncomfortable transformation brought about by 24-hour news cycles and big-money stakes. WTOL was a nice business that likely earned its owner a tidy profit, but CNN was on its way to becoming a multi-billion-dollar industry. And, to paraphrase the song, the product it manufactured was dirt.
“The bubble-headed bleach-blond comes on at five/she can tell you about the plane crash with a gleam in her eye/it’s interesting when people die/give us dirty laundry.”
“With a little innuendo, we can dance and sing/and when it’s said and done we haven’t told you a thing/we all know that crap is king/give us dirty laundry.”
While these lyrics reflect a nascent mistrust of the news media, that was 40 years ago and the transgressions Henley sings about seem positively quaint by today’s standards. Today, it is legitimate to wonder whether the media is reporting the news or creating it. Certainly, they are amplifying the aspects they believe will get the most viewers to tune in, and where’s the harm in that? Right?
A steady diet of negative news stories can lead to increased anxiety and stress. Endless images and stories of violence, crime and other tragedies can take a toll on our mental health. We may start to feel like the world is a dangerous place and that we are constantly at risk. Ultimately, this can create a sense of hopelessness. When we see that the world is full of problems, it can be easy to feel like there is no point in trying to make a difference. We may start to believe that the world is going to hell in a handbasket and that there is nothing we can do to stop it. This can lead us to distrust our neighbors and fellow citizens. We may start to believe that everyone is out for themselves and that there is no such thing as community, leading to isolation and a breakdown in social cohesion.
While it is essential to acknowledge that bad things do happen, an awareness of the adverse effects of negative news allows us to take steps to protect ourselves and our communities. We can do this by limiting our exposure to negative reporting, focusing on positive stories and getting involved in our communities. By doing these things, we can help to create a more positive and hopeful place to live.