by Michael Shepard

Created on: July 02, 2008   Last Updated: February 17, 2010

Putting this question under fire demands another question; which is: when thinking of all the hours in a life spent watching the nightly news, how many times has one heard the Anchor express the number of normal, successful live births of babies in their City?

The answer is undeniable. Aside from the occasional and freak quintuplet, sextuplet, etcetera birth; the figure arising is a big fat goose egg. Or Stork egg.  Only an occasional Haitian earthquake victim being pulled from rubble after 15 days is sensational enough to receive coverage.

Television news depends on advertising revenue to pay salaries and operating costs. Ostensibly, viewers/consumers are not interested enough in good news (like new entrants to the human race) to justify taking time away from bad news, which intrinsically satisfies an appetite for morbid fascination. I would venture to postulate an increase in fast food visits after a visual report on African hunger followed rapidly by shots of consumers enjoying mouth-watering fries or other food of choice.

Fear of death, pain, and social ridicule is the reason for bad news being demanded. This is why the bearded lady is so popular at the circus. Everyone is desiring to pay to see her so they can feel grateful they are not her. It is the reaction: "this is too ghastly to look at...and I cannot stop looking".

I do not watch commercial television news any more unless it is a special National event. I can still visualize daily casualty figures reported of American Soldiers victimized by the Vietnamese War and conjure up the powerful feelings of rage at powerlessness that nothing in my power could be done to change anything. I do not like those feelings and know they are a waste of energy that can be spent on things I can do something about. No news is good news; especially from the media; which prospers on the purveyance of bad news.

Some media outlets, such as Public Television Service, cater bad news; but for a higher purpose: to bring truth to the light. Since profit motive is, for the most part, removed, the senders of news are freed from duty to advertiser's aversion to offending consumers.

It does not follow, however, that not-for-profit news is without political agenda. The covering of Public News is similar to Supreme Court practice. Supreme Court Justices have thousands of cases screened for them and only accept cases in which they have a political interest in hearing. The selection of what is and what is not aired or heard is extremely political and prejudicial.

These days in Public Television Journalism Media, a story is sought for the reinforcement of political agenda. No apology is given for biased coverage, nor is reasonable effort made to present unbiased information. This is bad news to the target of their discretization. It may feel good to viewers in agreement with presenters, but real truth is in danger of being lost. This is bad news, and is consciously or unconsciously sought by powerful PBS journalists.

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