I remember watching a former Boston newscaster report the story of two murdered woman found slumped in cars in downtown Boston about twenty or so years ago.
The entire time he is telling the story he has this huge smile on his face.
My mother noticed it first.
" Do you see how he smiles when he talks about someone's death?" she asked.
" He smiles no matter what has happened.
" she complained as she changed the channel to another news cast.
In her own way my mother was right.
I recently saw that same reporter she disliked so much on a different channel.
He was reporting on an entire family found dead and he has that same carefree smile as he reads the report.
Twenty years of news and he still smiles about everything.
I changed the channel.
Maybe I shouldn't have.
Maybe he smiled so what he was reporting didn't influence his day, or our day.
Are we as a society getting used to the negativity of news.
I have to say that lately the news is horrible.
War, murdering your own children, slumping economy, gang this, gang that.
Everything occurring in the world today is reported to us with such a downward tilt, I don't have to make up my mind about the case.
The person informing me seems to feel guilt or fraud, so do I.
Everyone appearing in the news is yucky, all that happens in the world just plain crummy.
This is why we have become a society so quick to judge, the innocent are given little chance to escape ridicule if at any time they were suspect.
If your child disappears, you're assumed guilty until that child is found.
And how often does finding that child turn out positive.
How the news was portrayed to you may be the reason you've decided guilt or innocence.
I have watched a TV show dedicated to finding a young child for over six months.
Eventually the child was found dead, and the show continues to document the case.
It was obviously a murder.
And because I have watched this TV show for months, I know the mother is guilty.
Anyone watching the show will say the Mother did it.
And if there was that small chance in hell that she didn't kill her child, too bad.
Guilty...
I understand that in the end news reporting is all about ratings.
The station with the juiciest reporting gets the audience.
So now I'm pondering, have we become a society that fabricates negativity to make the story more interesting? Isn't that gossip? Do we all thrive on the bad stuff and forget there can be a brighter side? Or have we wasted away the good years on negative news addiction? I guess no matter how you look at it, news today is so horrific, maybe we need a smile to deliver it.