I’m tired of bad news.

I’m tired of reading about it. I’m tired hearing about it. I’m tired of seeing it on television.

Everywhere you turn these days, there is bad news. And it only grows worse.

Just the other morning, we were seated at the breakfast table, my wife and I. She poured the coffee. I buttered the toast. When it came to the newspaper, we both grabbed for it.

I got the front page.

I couldn’t believe the bad news. It started with the weather forecast on the upper right-hand corner of the page: Hazy. Hot and humid with triple digits predicted. Ugh!

Beneath it was the sad case in Oslo where a mad gunman went on a rampage, and it just kept getting worse with local homicides, fatal accidents, war, pestilence, drug encounters, business chaos, rising gas prices, a depressed housing market, and 3,600 post offices being considered for shutdown.

About the only thing light in the paper were the comics and entertainment guide. I’ll glance at the obituary page to see if my name is listed, otherwise turn the page.

I stopped reading and started moaning. Wasn’t there any good news to report? And then my senses took a firm grip with reality. Forty-five years in the journalism business and I should know better, right? It’s bad news that gets top play. Good news usually gets swept under the rug.

Truth is, there isn’t any news in being good. I keep telling myself that perhaps the world isn’t all that bad, that maybe the news tends to sensationalize a bit.

Over my long career, I’m well aware of how a reporter’s mind and pen work. The object is to give people what they want to read. But does the public really want tragedy day in and day out?

Not long ago, I turned on the TV and saw a newscaster present a different twist to his broadcast. He opened with the revelation that the good news this evening was the absence of bad news.

“Tonight we’re abstaining from our usual reports to bring you the good side of society—all the news that’s fit to report,” the announcer said.

He then focused on an Eagle Scout installation, a corps of hospital volunteers, a man who returned a lost wallet containing a large amount of cash, and a youngster who saved the life of a pet. I’m sure he could have filled another 15 minutes of blissful news.

How refreshing!

At my local high school one day, I spoke about journalism as a career and told students that reporters don’t conceive the news. They just write about it. And although we look for good news, it’s always bad news that finds us first. Perhaps we don’t look hard enough.

I told them that a newspaper is often a circulating library with high blood pressure. I know mine goes up each time I read the news. I prefer good stories to the sensational and morbid.

“A newspaper cannot save the world,” I told the students. “But you can. Once in a while, we go out of our way to help people, even save them.”

Later, a student slipped a note into my hand. It turned out to be a tip about a family that devoted itself to a compassionate ministry.

It was her family, consisting of a blind father who came from blind parents and three sightless siblings.

The story ran the following week and the entire community was glad to find out about these people. Anyone who has overcome adversity in their lives might relate to it.

A dozen stories like this are at our beckoning call, if only we would recognize them—from the gifted student-athlete and the musical prodigy to the foster parents who’ve turned their home into a refuge and the former homeless guy who winds up as a business executive.

I am tired of reading and hearing about doom and gloom, which I was often required to report. I’ll take the story about the humanitarian and hero any day over the serial killer and the drug lord.

Show me a guy who saves a puppy from drowning and I’ll show you a story that most people might enjoy.

To keep from going to bed depressed, I’ll often skip the evening news and watch “Seinfeld” or some other light comedy. That way I’ll retire with a smile on my face.

Not long ago, I came across a blurb in the newspaper that actually made me chuckle for a change. It was in the placement ads.

“Attractive kitten seeks position purring in a nice owner’s lap. Will also do light mouse work.”

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Tom Vartabedian

Tom Vartabedian is a retired journalist with the Haverhill Gazette, where he spent 40 years as an award-winning writer and photographer. He has volunteered his services for the past 46 years as a columnist and correspondent with the Armenian Weekly, where his pet project was the publication of a special issue of the AYF Olympics each September.