What’s News?

Saturday, May 31^st the MSN website news headlines broke down into these categories:

News   3

Cultural 6 (2 Kardashian items)

Social/Celebrity 10 (1 Kardashian item)

Business 1

Human Interest 1

21 pieces headlined. 3 were hard news and 1 was business. The rest is social/cultural/celebrity.

And that’s one day in the life of American news offerings.

Kardashians are not news. Celebrities are not news either. I don’t care how rich people live, their mansions, cars and other life clutter. I do care about wars, international issues that may have an impact on our land, as well as developments that will help keep peace in the world. I also care about business and economics, how the system is working, what problems it is struggling with and so forth.

I am not interested in politics. I don’t care what the politicians say unless it is directly making policy or killing programs that work while serving the political needs of a minority power ego group. And that’s not political news; it is criminal justice news.

There is good news available. Here are some the news decision makers might consider in the future:

-How communities are meeting their financial obligations in an era of government downsizing

-Medical research: their successes and failures; what’s new on the developing miracle front

-Reinventing American education: how we stack up with other nations; are we improving or slipping?

-Personal initiative that paid off: how one person had an idea that may change the world

-Volunteers: the work they do, the value of it

-Volunteers: unsung heroes of the American story

-How culture and life quality meet

-Living history: cause, effect, result – what we should be paying attention to

The list goes on and on. These are the stories we should be reading about, or seeing on TV or the internet. The rest is gossip and entertainment. Surely we have better things to do with our time.

We recently completed viewing all 196 episodes of Grey’s Anatomy. I doubt we will watch season 10 at all. And why is that? Because the series is mostly about sex, alcohol consumption and dysfunctional personal relationships. The soap opera themes and handling detract from the programs quality and impact. Medical subject matter is fascinating and engaging in itself. Yes, most medical business in the real world is boring. Only the exceptions are exciting and dramatic. Life and death is the core of drama of course. But it is to be expected. How well we handle it provides a decent story in and of itself.

But Grey’s Anatomy demonstrates how unfocused professional performance screws up lives. If the characters of Grey’s Anatomy invested half the time on their personal matters on medicine they would be the world class hospital they say they are.

I wonder how much of this is true in real life? I don’t see this side of hospital operations when I or family members are patients there. How much of Grey’s Anatomy is representative of American hospital life? Should we all be very worried?

Or is this just another example of entertainment taking our attention away from things that should matter to us?

All I ask is that we be as good as we can be and think outside the box. Let the social workers and psychiatrists do their jobs when needed. Apparently there is more a demand for that than I had thought!

June 3, 2014