When I was in the news business, I always bristled a bit when people talked about all the bad news in the media and lamented the fact that we didn’t print more good news. But from my point of view, there is no such thing as bad news or good news, there is just news.
An overabundance of apples on the market might mean cheap apple prices for consumers, hence some good news. But, bad news for apple growers and supermarkets whose profits suffer.
When I taught journalism, to make my point, I sometimes told the following true story, which I think makes a statement not only about journalism but also about life. A lifelong bachelor was the winner of $100,000 in one of Canada’s first lotteries back in the ’70s. Good news, right?
My students always agreed it was a good thing that he won the money. He went out and bought a boat with some of his winnings. Great. He went to church on Sunday, dressed in shirt and tie, and afterwards went to where his boat was moored to take it out for its first spin. He leaned over to start the engine and his tie got caught in the propeller which pulled his head under the water and he drowned.
Was his lottery win still a good thing? No, said the students, not a good thing at all. But a minute ago it was a good thing, good news. Everyone agreed it was. Now, they admitted they had been wrong and as things turned out, it wasn’t a good thing at all.
Then I would ask them, if you were wrong to make the judgment that his lottery win was a good thing, are you now correct in declaring that his death is a bad thing?
To me, we are not meant to judge the events of our lives as good or bad, although it might seem to us that death is an obvious bad thing. We just need to accept the twists and turns. I don’t think we have the ability, in fact, to know when something is good or bad. We think we do, but later we change our minds.
How many famous singers or actors or business leaders recall with glee how down they once were when fired from one of their first jobs driving cab or selling encyclopedias? The firing, of course, was just the course correction they needed to get launched in the new direction their lives would take.
Life is an adventure. If we knew where we were going, it would be something else altogether.
©2012 Jim Hagarty
