Ramblings About "The News"

I’m a big news-junkie.
Anderson Cooper, Lisa Ling, National Geographic, “60 Minutes”—actually pretty much anything CBS and I’m there. Maybe it’s the story-telling aspect of it, I’m not sure. Regardless, I find it all fascinating. (Also, as I mentioned in my first post, it provides ample inspiration for writing.) We can learn a lot about ourselves and the world around us through watching or reading the news. True stories of triumph, friendship, and love encourage us; stories of real pain and tragedy break our hearts and move some of us to action.
That being said, there are numerous people that become paranoid because of the news. In fact, my grandmother is one of them. She’s the type that compulsively watches the horrible things on the news and then makes a round of phone calls warning everyone of the inherent danger of-well, just about anything. She has good intentions, and I know this but we can’t live in fear. Bad things will happen eventually. This is obviously an abuse of information.
I think people who use the excuse “but the news is so depressing” are missing the big picture. There are so many touching stories that make the news, meant to inspire and show us that incredible things really do happen. And what about the heart-wrenching stories that we hear about all the time? What about them? If it’s so horrible, just think about the people living through those nightmares. The least we can do is pray for them, keep them in our thoughts. Most of us are blessed enough to have relatively peaceful lives, which has spoiled us. Is it so bad to be moved out of our comfort zone, especially when it brings us closer to sympathizing with complete strangers in distress?

Despite the numerous benefits of news, I find it intolerable when news stations are so obviously biased and enjoy mean-spirited “debating” (which actually means yelling and senselessly arguing their own opinions). This is why I don’t like Fox News or CNN.