"If it bleeds... it leads." If it heals... what?

"I do not take s single newspaper, nor read one a month, and I feel myself infinity the happier for it." —Thomas Jefferson: I didn't read the news much when I was younger. I didn't have the patience to read material that did not develop characters and plots, lead me off to other worlds, or suspend my notion of reality. I read the news much more now, advise the school newspaper, and supervise a news writing class. I am struck by how often I feel saddened after reading the news. The worst is when I feel like the town gossip, tuning into news that is not terribly relevant to me, but outlines the strife of locals I might know or have a loose connection to. At best I feel informed about important events that DO shape our world BUT makes me think so much about things I often have little control over. News often—and for good reason—deals with conflict and tragedy. Positive news  exists, but is harder to come by. It often feels like contrived, feel-good moments, appropriate for the FaceBook feed (sigh) and not the pages of the Times, Post, Journal, Herald, etc. Attempts at "good news" sites border or click-bait and unsupported hokey moments. Are all the best "good" stories reserved for cinema? Maybe. Only when the good news is extraordinary does it lead (think discoveries, breakthroughs, missions to space, etc.)


We firemen know about news: When a fire has started, and the local fire department is unable to get there in time, the story is dramatic and makes the news. What a tragedy when someone loses their home (safety) and belongings (memories). The work is exterior work, hard and full of flame, but not as dangerous as one might think. When a fire starts in one room, progresses slow enough for us to get there in five minutes,  attack lines at the source within ten, walls opened, secondary searches for extension within fifteen to twenty, and full extinguishment established within thirty or less, we rarely make the paper. Interior work is often more dangerous than exterior—the risk greater, the reward greater. I feel a sense of failure when we are forced to move from interior to exterior, from offensive to defensive maneuvers. It's evidence that the fire had the advantage, and so we retreat to defensive positions, conceding the territory in the name of protecting against further spread. When we "make a stop" on the other hand, it is a result of a coordinated attack.

Christmas day some years ago at a home somewhere in my town: A family had gone out for a while, leaving a warm home filled with the remains of a child focused Christmas morning. A fire located in a wood stove moved into the wall, and eventually spread, spanning two floors. The alarm went out and we moved with all haste. The first responding firefighters arrived ahead of the trucks. They rushed in with personal extinguishers, holding their breath, buying a few precious minutes for the hose team to advance a minute or so later. [Did you know that fire can double its size every minute. The law of doubling is frightening when you think on it. Quick response is essential for stopping fire.] A saw crew artfully opened the wall, and we used low volumes of water to stop a fire that was working on two rooms now. The result: the family spent one day at a local hotel and their house had minor smoke damage. The structure was sound, easily repaired, and  a young child's gifts were safe and waiting for him the next day. No one was hurt.

Shameless "Selfie" from Training

It was a massive victory with a happy ending. No news. It was the product of lots of training and good communication. It was "what we do".

And then there are days... When a business on Main Street burns down due to huge fuel load and starting in the wee hours of the morning, moving through multiple rooms before tripping any alarms denying us any chance to win the initial assault, it's front page material.

A story where everyone does their job correctly and successfully is not news, it's "everyday". "Airline captains successfully landed their Boeing 747 at Logan Airport today after departing on time from LAX this morning." When "everyday" events shift to the extraordinary, we have news. It makes sense, but sends the wrong message to the brain if all we read is the extraordinary...

"The solution to pollution is dilution...": I am not sure what the answer is for this beyond blogging about it, looking for ways to find balance and supporting that balance—trying to share click-worthy elements while avoiding the click-bait trap that often lies close. I am not happy with much of the fluff I seem to get when I go to the Huffington Post, but they are trying to find their way (of course they are trying to make money, but maybe they will do so by finding interesting stories and not by merely using sensational headlines to get to pointless observations of celebrity "snews"). NPR covered their attempts  to seek the positive in this article:

http://www.npr.org/2015/02/06/384341190/huffington-post-bets-people-will-read-good-news-and-share-it-too

I love Pizza... I really do: Real stories that move us should be shared, we should be discerning about what we push though. Here's my attempt at offing a positive story about people being people. It is not news. It just is. The economic model presented is not going to change anything, but a few thousand dollars on the bottom line, and there seems to be lessons about giving fish and teaching people to fish that I wish to avoid here. But if viewed as a story about people looking for a way to improve the world they live in—albeit in a micro-transation like a slice of pizza—it is extraordinary, and therefor, news. I just got a smile from this UpWorthy piece, and offer a simple piece of goodness with the hopes it might provoke others to look for their own "Pay it Forward" moment: