Media Training Question #84 – Where’s The Good News?

March 14, 2011 - PRLog -- For the many of you that are paying attention to the news and what is going on around all of us, bad news is in abundance these days.  Whether at home or abroad, clearly there is too much negativity to digest and comprehend, but it is real and therefore we should place some energy to understanding it and dealing with it because eventually it will effect us in our communities and in our own homes.

Watching as the events in Japan unfold; the destructive force of nature profoundly reminds us of how little we personally control no matter what our egos tell us.  The aftermath of this horrific display of destruction and the literal decay of centuries of progress and a tearing apart of families and fortunes disappear in a matter of moments as Mother Nature demolishes property, history and purpose.

Here in the United States, we see local, state and federal government actively chipping away at the foundation of what so many Americans have fought wars for and for civil and worker rights after decades of progress we are now experiencing legislative actions that have forced people into the streets, occupying state capitols and protesters streaming in to demonstrate by the thousands in the Midwest and beyond.  

This is 2011; we are supposedly more enlightened than we have ever been.  We move information at the speed of sound and in an age where anyone of us with a cell phone with video capability has the capability to  become more effective than an experienced reporter and it is having an immediate impact on what we know and when we know it.  I’m not here to debate the effectiveness or responsibility of all this, but I do want to make the critical point that as we move information the filter that was once the newsroom is gone forever, and maybe that’s not a bad thing but I don’t think we have analyzed it enough yet to know with certainty if this is good progress or bad progress.

It is said that there are two things we never want to see made:  sausages and laws .I believe we have evidence of that today, not because we can’t handle the truth but because we are denying the truth even as it’s presented to us in remarkable detail and in its raw, unedited form.

A State Department spokesperson was forced to resign this weekend because he dared to have a personal point of view on a solider who is imprisoned over the Wiki Leaks situation and this spokesperson had a point of view that was counter to his bosses, the Obama Administration and his direct boss Hilary Clinton.  By the time the words left his lips a scant few minutes later everyone in his hierarchy knew it and that was it, he was done.

In the House of Representatives, Republican Congressman Peter King, convened a hearing on Friday on “radicalization of Muslims” in the United States and their supposed threat to the American way of life and the best way to stop them, from infiltrating our youth, ignoring the pleadings of thousands of people who saw the as McCarthy-like in their reach and tenor and offensive to those who see these hearings as nothing but a religious witch hunt and meant to do nothing but continue to place focus on hatred on a radical element of a sect and IMPLY that all Muslims are a threat to American society, which is ludicrous.  If that theory were true then we should also do the same for all Christians because one of the conditions to membership in the KKK is that you must be a Christian.  See how radical this idea is?  

We are seeing an increasing amount of division in this country as is and as worldwide events, like in Japan or Libya, one natural, one man made, the net effect of all of this culminates into more confusion and contributes to a deeper sense of disconnect and disillusionment.  These are not good things.

As I continue to work with people and their desire and passion to find a message that will resonate with a larger number of people one of the factors I have to consider as I help them shape that message is how to be heard over the realities of world events.  Is it fair that to people who have an ability to help shape the conversation or maybe even have a path to understanding and healing with their message to be ignored by the reality of world events?  Well, I don’t have the answer to that entirely, but the priority we as a news consumer give to stories does have an impact and in that reality we do need to ask ourselves how much we are willing to tolerate and how much longer we will allow ourselves to be force fed information without repercussions to the very news organizations who pass themselves off as credible.

We no longer live in a solutions based society, not in the bigger picture.  And as cynical as this is going to sound it is completely true.  When the earthquake in Japan happened last week there were many “leaders” in this country that were pleased that that becomes the lead story.  Mother Nature gave them a gift as major society changing news domestically was forced off the front page.  There was celebration in some high powered Board rooms around the country as that assault by nature, a major story by any measure, forces journalists to stop in their tracks and move on to that story.  

If for a moment you don’t think what’s happening in Libya, or Wisconsin, or Michigan will affect you, you are dead wrong.  If you for a moment don’t think that a polarizing hearing in Washington, DC on the smallest faction of society and its hate-based reasoning for it will eventually affect you, you are wrong.  If you don’t think that what you chose to listen to or what you decide to ignore will affect you, you are wrong.

My job as a Media Trainer requires me to take someone’s expertise and help them shape a message that will give them not just the skill set to deliver that message when the time comes but also to help them find a message that will attract and appeal to as wide an audience as possible, and that job gets more and more difficult when the consumer of information, you, stops paying attention or becomes lazy in their news consumption habits.

I am asking all of you to take a step back from who you are and what you do or even how well or not so well you are doing and try to look at what is happening around all of us and the impact that has on all of us and then decide what your priorities are.   Take more responsibility for your personal world and the information you consume and start to make better educated choices and decisions.  The reason there is so much bad news, in my opinion, is because we have allowed those who make the news, not those who report the news, to do so without recrimination or explanation.  They know all too well that time, nature and to some extent the stupidity of someone else will eventually get them off the hook, because there seems to be no shortage of bad decision makers in the country and the world today.

You really can help shape what we know and what we’re told and the sooner you understand that the sooner real change can take place and good news will once again find its way to us on issues that actually matter to all of us.

Who won the spelling bee is good news, but the teacher who won the student who won the spelling bee is better news and until we understand that we have a say in how to empower and support the teacher it won’t make the news.

So what will it be because you can’t have it both ways?

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As the host of his own nationally syndicated radio programs for 15 years, Tony has interviewed over 25,000 guests and appeared as a guest on over 800 radio and national television shows. He founded of his own public relations firm and he went on to author two books and became a “go to” authority on a myriad of issues from weight loss to self empowerment; from politics to pop culture. His list of media training clients number over 2000, many of them well known celebrities and authors. He and enjoys of the challenge of helping people discover their voice.Tony is respected and well known for his honesty and willingness to do what it takes to get to a core message. He works tirelessly with his clients and advocates for his clients in finding the most passionate and profound tenets of their message and then giving them the tools to deliver that message. http://www.mediatraining.me