It's very easy nowadays to get caught up in the nice, feel-good news that so many news companies put out for us to read: cool stories about celebrities or TV shows or music or sports. Sure, these stories are nice to read in the midst of so much violence and sadness, and they have their place. But when it gets to the point that those are the only stories you care about reading, it becomes a problem.
I think news should be more honest. News should focus more on what is actually happening in our world, and show people the truth behind the conflicts and pertinent problems happening now. There are many news companies that focus on these things, and they try to give an honest, transparent reporting of stories happening around the world. The only problem is many of these news companies are not very popular among the public. The bigger news companies that are much more frequented often are the culprits of these sweet-story news stories; they focus on issues like the personal life of a politician or the recent reboot of "The X-Files," and fail to give the truth of issues like the recent bombing in Jakarta and the ISIS attacks in Deir Ezzor.
I'm not discounting these other stories, the non-breaking news stories. But what I'm saying is too much of a good thing can become a bad thing. If people continue to only see these types of stories, they will only search for these kinds of stories. The public could potentially lose their interest in pressing issues that can have drastic effects on our lives. There's a war going on that people are caring less about, and terrorist groups are attacking people all across the globe, killing innocent people almost daily. Why are we not talking about that??
Journalism, at its core, is a practice that is meant to keep people informed. It exists to let the public see the absolute truth on what is happening across the world and to educate us on the conflicts and news-worthy events that go on everywhere, every day. I don't want us to lose sight of that, and to become a country that doesn't care about the implications of our actions or the actions of others. I want us to be a country that seeks out problems, learns about them, and then overcomes them.
Basically, I just want to implore that we all care about the world around us. Don't get caught up in stories that don't carry urgency, but don't let yourself get totally buried in the multitudes of depressing news either. Stay informed and worry about the world around you.
