Maybe I picked a bad time to start a blog based on news, but its made me realise, how boring the news is. There really isn't much going on in the world.
But another way of looking at it is, what constitutes news? No doubt you will have been exposed to the view that news is just a collection of environmental catastrophes, crime stories and other bad news. And the rationale behind this is, that no one really wants to hear good news.
Think about how people at work react when you tell them good news. For example, if you told them that Mike from accounting had won $512,000 on Millionaire, bought his dream house, and was taking a holiday to Tuscany. They might say things like:
"Oh thats great news"
"Good on him!"
"I didnt think it was possible to win $512,000 on Millionaire. I thought it went straight from $500,000 to $1,000,000?"
And that would be about it.
But what if you told them, that Mike had crashed out of Millionaire after getting the first question wrong, his house had burnt down, and he had been arrested for selling drugs at "The Tuscany" Nightclub.
No doubt, there would be much more interest. People would want to know every sordid detail:
"I heard his wife burnt it down for the insurance"
"He was always a bit suspect"
"No one goes to "The Tuscany" any more"
"I heard he shot Kennedy"
In fact, people would probably still be talking about it 3 months later. If Mike was allowed to come back at work, there would probably still be whispers around the office about his exploits.
The point you could take from that is that people don't like good news as much as bad news. But maybe there is a different point. Tragedy and bad news, are not representative of whats happening in society. A rise in crime is front page news. A drop in crime may not even make it into the paper.
The moral of the story, is stop watching the news. And stop reading blogs devoted to comment on the news.
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