Mr. Hyde in the Mirror...

I have a picture in my mind of a certain kind of person. See if you come up with the same picture. This is the kind of person who gets a perverse, inexplicable pleasure from the horrible tragedy of other people. This person seeks out word of such events with the passion of a lover, as if feeding, vampire-like, off the suffering of others. When this person hears of such a tragedy, they devour any and all information they can about it, savoring every morsel of detail, relishing the most horrible particulars. This person especially loves news of the horrible death of children. The more gruesome and painful, the more ghastly the destruction of such innocence, the more this person laps it up. This person is, in short, a glutton of others' pain, a gleeful, morbid feaster on the most helacious losses this world has to offer.

Can you picture this person? Is he or she terrible? Bloodthirsty? Demonic? Does this person look like you?

No?

The media seems to think so.

I was listening to the radio the other day and the news came on. I have trained myself to quickly turn it off when the news comes on, but that day I forgot. The newscaster began her broadcast with the following words: "Coming up: news on a horrific accident today involving the deaths of several children." She said it with a calm, reasonable, even jaunty tone. As if this were something we'd all be dying to hear. Are we? I sure as hell am not. I turned it off as quickly as I could.

I really want to know: Am I unusual? I, personally, do NOT wish to hear all about the horrible tragedies and losses of other people. I find it so unsettling and gut-wrenching that I can hardly bear it. But do the rest of you like it? The news media seems to think you all are desperate to hear it, would be glued to your TVs and radios in the hopes of hearing every bloody, horrible, life-sucking detail. Is it true? Do the rest of you love hearing about the horrific deaths of children?

If so, tell me: how are you any different from that ghoulish person I described above, gorging on the tragedies of others? It isn't as if there is some moral obligation to hear such things. Virtually never is it the sort of situation that any of us can remedy or affect. It simply paints horror over our lives, fills us with fear and pathos. I have to believe most of us are not such horribly evil and bloody-minded people as to secretly delight in such news. Please, tell me I am right.

If I AM right, and most of us are repulsed by such stories and do not want to have them broadcast at us in day-glo color, then how is it that the media has gotten it so wrong? How is it that the media thinks we are so horribly perverse that we'd delight in such news and never tire of the gory details?

Several months ago, I scribbed some thoughts on this trend, called it "No News is Good News", in the sense that maybe it'd be better to just turn off the news altogether. Check it out: http://georgezilla.blogspot.com/2006/05/no-news-is-good-news.html

At the time, it was an annoyance, an irksome realization of the type of news that always made the top stories, and a musing about why. Now, I don't want to just comment on it. This should be addressed. This should be changed.

I want to do something about it. If I am right-- if all but the sickest and most perverse of us DO NOT want to hear such awful stories as if they were candy, then I want to do something. Any ideas? How can we all let the media know that we are not the ghoulish freaks they think we are? I'm open for ideas.