Who Wants Good News?

Recently, India's first meet of Citizen Journalists was organized in Mumbai. It was a unique one and welcomed by the participants. The meet was about what could be the role of Citizen Journalists and what should be the areas, which should be focused on. All agreed that the emergence of citizen journalism will lead to democratization of the media - which has been largely a one-way street till now. The Internet and the mobile phone have enabled the alert and concerned citizen to talk to the world, largely on one's own terms and let it be known what he or she thinks is important. Most of the participants very naturally felt that developmental issues, issues of social injustice, corruption, etc. should be focused on. Commentary on these subjects paints generally a very grim picture of the country. It does cater to the cynic in us. A participant felt, that a lot of good is happening in the country and it is going unreported. So the reader does not get a balanced view of the world at large, or the inspiration to replicate such success stories.

Here I seek to relate my own perception of Good News vs. Bad News. It is said, the coherence of negatives is stronger than the coherence of positives. A false rumor of a riot spreads faster than factual news of a peace treaty. Everyone loves a good draught, but nobody notices a plentiful harvest. Dishonesty is reported, but honest lifelong service goes unreported. Ditto for success vs. failure. Bill Moyers, one time top aide to President Johnson, ventured to bring out a newspaper which would publish only good news and predictably it wound up soon. The truth is that bad news titillates but good news does not tickle us. With the advent of mass culture and democratization of media comes the inevitable dumbing down. Both the print media and TV have to pander to the lowest common denominator. New hairstyles of actors and sportspersons hit the headlines on the first page of mainline papers. A panelist from a TV channel confessed that even news channels have to stoop to cover a strip dancer's jerks and shakes, all in search of higher TRP ratings. Another panelist confessed that much against his good sense he had to dispatch a reporter to cover a broken toe of a beauty queen and actor, Aishwarya Rai, when the same reporter could have been spared for a more pressing event of greater public concern.

Democratization and dumbing down of media have been criticized for the inevitable lack of depth. An expert journalist's eye for detail and taking a detached view is missing. As citizen journalism takes off, while we laud the democratization, we have to guard against wasting our resources on superficiality, trivia and the profane. It is worth quoting from We Media: How Audiences are Shaping the Future of News and Information, by Shayne Bowman and Chris Willis. "The intent of this participation is to provide independent, reliable, accurate, wide-ranging and relevant information that a democracy requires."
Both the CJ contributors and the editors have to team up to provide a platform, which promotes equity and inclusiveness for all sections of society, so that not only elitist India shines but also those who live on the fringes of the society. How to make Good News attractive to the reader and to make revenue model viable, without dumbing down the contents, is the challenge. Here, it may be worthwhile to evaluate www.goodnewsindia.com, which since 2000 has been publishing exclusively good news and had 3 million page views in June 2007.