PLATFORM : Where’s the Good News?

MARTYN LEWIS, anchor of the British Broadcasting Co.’s “9 O’Clock News” in London, spoke on the subject of violence in television news at a recent Town Hall in Los Angeles. The following is excerpted from his speech:

“Why is the news so gloomy . . . why don’t you give us more good news”--questions raised with regularity when television people brush up against their viewers.

It is high time that we who work in television news--whether in America, Japan or Europe--started treating the accusation with the seriousness it deserves.

Try to sell any TV news editor a story of success or achievement. You quickly find that it is always the “good news” stories that are demoted or dropped if there is any pressure on time or space. The bigger the scale of the tragedy, the greater the images of the disaster, the more weight and prominence it acquires. Over a period of time, there is a relentless drip-feed into the viewer’s mind that we live in a society where achievement takes a back seat to conflict, disaster and failure.

The good, the instructive, the successes don’t happen on the same mass scale as suffering--they happen in small ways--but cumulatively they can be having a far bigger effect on society--or have the potential to do so, if only we would report it.

I am not suggesting we squeeze out the negative; what goes wrong in society is the basis for many illuminating news stories. I am simply arguing for positive stories to be given a fair and natural hearing.

We are so wrapped up in this diet of negativity that we have lost sight of what should be the Excalibur of television journalism, our shining sword--our duty to reflect in a visibly fair way the full spectrum of changes that are taking place to shape our country and our world.

We don’t have to give up our constantly questioning approach. We simply have to broaden our journalistic sights so they more regularly encompass the sunshine as well as the shadows.