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Show CAPITOL IK inSte? WATCHDOG 1 '1 M I'm wAiiiillJLlL J By Bill Hendrix Why no 'good' news There sure is a lot of bad news around today. It seems there's nothing of importance im-portance being published in the newspapers, or aired on t.v. and radio that's good. The sansational, the bizarre, the ugly, these seem to be the trade words for the media and a lot of people are rebelling. They're turning off the tube and canceling their subscriptions. Yes, the only news, it seems is bad news. A few years ago that was the theme of one of our high government officials and it created quite a stir in the news media. One enterprising independent station in Arizona decided it would only broadcast good news. The t.v. broadcaster broad-caster would come on the air and give a capsule of the usual bad news and the rest of the program was devoted to "good" things that were happening. The station's ratings went down dramatically. The station manager and the news director, along with most of the news staff, were fired. When questioned the news director said, "We made a big mistake. We thought news was good or bad. What it really is, is unusual. It's what's out of the ordinary that makes news. There's no such thing as good or bad news, there's only reports of unusual happenings. happen-ings. Fortunately, the bad we see on t.v. and in the newspapers is unusual enough that it's different from the norm." He went on to say, "I hope I never sec the day when "good" is unusual. Recently Ixonnrd Read, founder and president of the Foundation for Economic Education wrote an essay on good news. Ho came to the same conclusion con-clusion as the Arizona news director, news is bad because it's unusual. "The good news," said Read, "concerns the private ownership and control of scarce and valuable resources and the voluntary volun-tary exchange of goods and services in open competition, with government limited to keeping the peace and invol-ing invol-ing a common justice." For those still looking for some good news, take a look at this. In 1979 over 197 million Americans weren't arrested. ar-rested. Another (19 million didn't file for divorce. 11! million U.S. citizens maintained main-tained their affilialion with some religious group. Over 4 million teachers and professors did not strike or participate par-ticipate in unruly demonstrations. That's good news mid this may be the first lime you've heard nlxiut it. In the HDD's, when the U.S. was n budding and prospering mil ion, French sliilcsuuin and political writer, Alexis dc Tocqiiovillo came lo America and made this otten quoted statement, "l sought for the greatness and genius of America in fertile fields and boundless forests; it was not there. I sought for it in her free schools and her institutions of learning; it was not there. I sought for it in her matchless Constitution and democratic congress; it was not there. Not until I went to the churches of;; America and found them a flame withst righteousness did I understand thef greatness and genius of America.': America is great because America is;;e good. When America ceases to be good,- America will cease to be great." er Perhaps all the bad news is a goodi-, sign. tl -"01 |