We Americans ask for and get negative news reports

ACHTUNG: This is not a fair and balanced story. It is an editorial by the editor.

“Nobody robbed a liquor store on the lower part of town
Nobody OD’ed, nobody burned a single buildin’ down
Nobody fired a shot in anger, nobody had to die in vain
We sure could use a little good news today.” — Anne Murray, 1983

Americans have a nasty and dangerous habit of hearing, reading and watching the news and somehow believing, particularly over the last several decades, that the news should be avoided because it’s mostly negative. Too many also have a nasty habit of blaming the news media for telling them what’s happening.

Having been in the business for more than four decades, I’ve often been confronted by readers upset about the “negative” news they read in the newspapers, as if it’s a conspiracy of editors and reporters to peddle fear and sensationalize the tawdry, the disgusting, the just plain awful.

There is more than a grain of truth in this argument because news services very simply have to get you interested enough to look, listen or read. We reporters and editors have to implore you to “look at this,” “listen to this” or “read this.”

If the news reported by media was mundane, not negative, not fascinating, no one would pay attention.

“It’s not news when airplanes take off and land safely. It is news when they crash.” — Me

Over my more than four decades, I can say without fear of contradiction that the largest number of readers is interested in crime, murder and mayhem. Many readers over the years have told me they only read the paper to see who went to jail.

So essentially, the media indeed is sensationalizing negative news, but the biggest reason is that it’s what the readers, listeners and viewers want. And in a capitalist society, your business will not survive if you don’t give the customers what they want.

This awful fact reduces the once noble profession of journalism to being like a prostitute — give them what they want, regardless of whether of not it’s good for them. Things have gotten worse over the last 40-plus years. I’ve seen the service of telling people what’s going on in a serious way as falling by the wayside, succeeded by the more spectacular and colorful presentation of news that really doesn’t matter or news that only makes us afraid to get out of the house except to go to work or go to shop. Perhaps that’s the way some in power would like us to behave.

There is no question that money drives the news now much more than it ever did before. If you carefully and critically watch broadcast news you come to the understanding too much of it is disguised marketing and advertising. Just examine every so-called news report and ask yourself if there is some kind of payoff for a business of service.

I don’t know how many times last fall Channel 8 reporters exhorted us to come on downtown to take in the Art Prize. Every time the auto show opens, reporters show up on site to promote the newest vehicles with the latest gadgets. When there’s a big ballgame, they go to the sports bars to make news out of spectators jeering and cheering. And when a fast-food restaurant opens, they are there to show us the long lines of customers who need to get a life.

It’s happening much more often in print media, which may be on its last legs anyway. And if you listen to a Detroit Tigers broadcast, pay attention to how many sponsors are paying for a pitching change, a run batted in or a home run.

Marketing and advertising are ubiquitous. You cannot escape them. And they have ruined the very profession I loved all those years.

And sometimes, like in case of hyperventilating over crime incidents, they give us a false sense of what’s really happening around us, keeping us scared and stupid.

The late great comedian Bill Hicks, noting that while watching TV news he was bombarded by crime, murder, robbery, plane crashes, death… asked where all this stuff was happening.

He said he opened his back door and was greeted only by the sounds of crickets.