Joseph L. Kagle, Jr. Peace Essays

If It Bleeds, It Leads!

For the newsman, the motto is: “If it bleeds, it leads.” In the journey toward peace, that is one thing that has to be turned around. There have been some attempts at “happy news” but it has not sold to the general audience. If it does not shock, upset or astound us, it is not news. Would it not be wonderful to have the motto: “If it makes us succeed, we read.”

It's time for TV to give us more than 'shock-death reporting'

  It took two millennia to drive to Bubba Jay III's house on what was once called Dripping Springs Road. Starting in Tulsa on a visit to my grandchild, I took off in 1999. I arrived at his doorstep in 2000.

  Now, a 2000-year journey to visit a friend should be news, but we had no car crashes, saw no disasters, murdered no one, witnessed no celebrity making a fool out of him or herself, drove by no high school where gunshots were fired at students, and in fact had a simple, enjoyable, seven-hour drive.

  Oh, we did stop at Braum's for breakfast because we love their ice cream as dessert.

Bubba was watching the news on the idiot box when I arrived. Therefore, I sat down beside him without a word, just a nod.

  The first five or six stories were about death and destruction. The lead story was about an NFL wide receiver named Carruth who (never doing anything in life or on the professional football field to make him a household word) had allegedly murdered his pregnant girlfriend.

  He's charged with hiring three gunmen to pull the trigger, then sitting in his car and directing it on his cell phone. We've gotten every meaningless detail and will get more, I fear.

News bites back

  Years ago when I worked at the Dartmouth College newspaper, the editor told me the old story about what is news.

  "If a man bites a dog." he advised me, "that's news. If a dog bites a man. that's life."

   I recounted that story to Bubba. He pointed out that the principle behind my sage editor's advice was if a story is unusual, it is news.

  My problem today as I watch the square intruder is that it seems death is all I get. The standard news is broken into a fraction of a second of shock image or shock headline. It is geared to a fifth-grade education. It rattles first, informs never.

     My reaction to all the rattling is that murder, destruction, death and celebrity stupidity no longer are news. We get it all the time. It is now commonplace.

  For years, I have ignored or turned off Paul Harvey. I thought that he went for the everyday cliché too much. One recent night, I listened to his whole program because everything else on the airwaves was so bad.

   Harvey told a holiday story about a poor boy who worked hard to earn $7. At an auction. he bid on a computerized toy car which was something that he wanted his whole life. He had to stop bidding at $7.

    Two men continued spirited bidding until one dropped out at over $140. After the auction, the winning bidder came over to the boy and presented him with the special toy car.

   It was only later that the boy found out that. the second man was also bidding for him. That's the kind of news I want to hear.

    "In today's world." Bubba said, "the boy's story is news. Here's another news flash: I stopped into a store the other day and a young girl gave me personalized, informed, courteous service.

    "I will go back to that store in the future. That kind of service is good news for a business."

  "Why can't we have unusual feel-good lead news?" I asked Bubba. "Why must all news be negative or celebrity-driven to get on the idiot box?"

   A friend in the media told me that "all-feel-good news" had been tried by TV stations. "It didn't work in terms of customers."

  "It should be tried again." Bubba said. "The timing is right. I would watch it. I believe many people are tired of death and destruction being presented as the only news fit to broadcast."

   So am I. There is an audience out there that is tired of only one kind of news: death-shock reporting.

   "If life is worth living, then it is worth reporting," Bubba said and walked over to extinguish TV's power. He had turned it off in his mind long before.