Deirdra Stockmann - Good and bad news: learning to strike a balance

Bad news gets good press.

The A-section of the newspaper is dominated by stories of death, war and injustice. The 11 o'clock news delivers the crime report in what feels more like a sensationalized blockbuster movie of the 10 plagues than the objective communication of real current events.

"But what about the story about the cat who was rescued by the fire department or the girl who sold the most boxes of Girl Scout cookies?," you ask. True, there is the national phenomenon of the 90-second "human interest story." But we all know how these stories are actually received -- as jokes, as a chance for the anchors to show us their pearly whites, but certainly not as "real news."

If these are the human-interest stories, though, what is the rest of the news? It seems that if that is the kind of news consumers were interested in, it would be the focus of the program, not the jovial comic relief it has become.

Is there a demand for good news? Is it important that we learn about things that people are doing right in society? Should we hear about programs that are improving lives without making others worse off?

It is easy to be critical both in reporting news and giving opinions. And few people would disagree that it is important and necessary aspect of the news media. People have a right to be informed of the serious facts of the news, and others have the right to give their opinions of it.

But why? So that we are aware enough of all the bad things happening around the world so that we may sufficiently sulk about them? A more optimistic response is that we should be aware of current events so that we can think about them critically and contribute to solutions.

Inundated with negative news, however, it is easy to be overwhelmed and convinced that there are no solutions and that it is impossible to create change within such established social institutions. To combat, or even hedge this most looming barrier to social change, we need to be aware of good news that is also real news.

We need to hear about local initiatives that have created change in their schools so that our energy to improve ours will be reinforced and reinvigorated. Deborah Meier's book The Power of their Ideas tells her story of redesigning the Central Park East Public Schools starting in the 1970s with the elementary school and working through the 1990s to establish a high school.

We need to hear about initiatives on campuses that have grown out of undergraduates' work and research with faculty and created systemic change. In the midst of its Awareness Week, one project developed here at Penn over 15 years ago is the West Philadelphia Improvement Corps.

As an umbrella organization for a number of school day, after school and weekend programs, many of which were developed by Penn students, WEPIC has reached thousands of West Philadelphia students and community members. Its work includes but is never limited to nutrition education programs, peer discussion groups and art enrichment programs.

Because of its real and lasting success, Penn's WEPIC model has been replicated in 20 universities around the country. It continues to provide many opportunities for Penn students to get involved with their wider community.

Because they often do not get the press they deserve, small organizations trying to make real change host rallies like the "Student Labor Day of Action" slated to happen today on College Green. How often do these events really engender the dedicated support they need to take their cause to the next level?

When they fail it is most likely a result of the same problem -- that most people are so convinced that everything happening in the world is negative and destructive, that they have little faith that these grassroots movements will ever "go anywhere." With a more ingrained sense that many such movements have affected serious and lasting change, people will be more empowered to decide which causes interest them and can "go somewhere" with the necessary force of human energy.

It is in humanity's best interest to report on the things we are doing right, the steps in the right direction, and certainly the well-intentioned actions that failed to meet the intended goal but provided lessons for the future.

There is a middle ground. There is such thing as serious and substantive positive news. Striking a balance between the reports that elucidate the things that need to be changed and stories that show that change is possible are equally necessary parts of the process of democratic change.

Deirdra Stockmann is a senior Politics, Philosophy, and Economics major from Oak Park, Il.

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