I found this article from back in March in the LA Times - "Adding to the daily drumbeat of dire pronouncements is almost too easy these days. The public yearns for stories that inspire, and they're out there if journalists want to look.
When Brian Williams asked at the end of the "NBC Nightly News" three weeks ago for viewers to send along good news, he couldn't have imagined the thousands of e-mails that would pour into the network overnight.
The resulting stories on "acts of kindness in this cruel economy" have made NBC the most visible of many media outlets pushing to give audiences some good news in the midst of bad times.
The trend-bucking features might have the public wondering: What took so long?
I'd say a bit of the traditional good news deficit comes from the misguided conviction among some news people that happy endings and serious journalism don't mix. But I'd lay some of the blame with audiences too. There's more good news out there than some of you have recognized. Let's start with one of the most basic tenets of journalism -- that "news" is what we don't expect. We pull out our notepads for the unexpected: Man bites dog. Plane cartwheels off runway. Jon Stewart goes Mike Wallace on interview subject.
To that old rule most big outlets apply a corollary: A complete paper or newscast must include a "mix," of breaking news and features, of photos and words, covering subjects both trifling and transcendent.
Most networks, cable outlets and big newspapers try to cover the entire spectrum, but their hearts really soar for the weighty, heavy stuff. That means lots of focus on dark stories, regardless of whether they hint at a resolution, or even much hope. Prize-winning investigative reporter Frank Greve of McClatchy newspapers talked about the queasy reaction he got from some colleagues a couple years ago when he announced he would start a "good news" beat.
"Some of my old friends, when I told them what I was doing, reacted as if I'd told them I had cancer," Greve told the Poynter Institute, a nonprofit school for professional journalists. "Most, but not all" of those reporters encouraged Greve when they saw that he still reported and wrote with rigor. Greve has noted how delayed licensing of drivers has driven down the teenage accident rate. He's written about how many old people remain sexually active. He's raised doubts about whether we should really need to worry about pharmaceutical contamination in drinking water.
That list of topics might seem like a hodgepodge, but there's a common theme. Bad news grows out of conflict or loss. Good news often means just following the conflict through to a resolution. Read more here...
