Columnist Scott Dickensheets: Out with the bad news, in with the good

"WHY DO YOU media guys only report bad news," a friend asked me the other day. "It's like you're always digging for it."

This wasn't his first anti-media rant; this particular friend, who prides himself on being a regular Joe, frequently baits me like that. He's weary of the diet of scandal, criminality and pious nosiness that the media feed him. Not even innocuous sports journalism has a clean rap sheet as far as he's concerned -- we came as close to throttling each other as we ever have while arguing about women reporters in the locker room (let 'em in, says I; bar the door, says he). He thinks of us media guys as scavenger birds, like ravens, and he shoots ravens.

Generally I ignore him, but since we were in a vehicle many miles from home, I didn't have that option. And maybe it was travel exhaustion, maybe it was the hypnotic hum of the tires on the road, or maybe it was just a mild cerebral hemorrhage, but I briefly wondered, By gosh, what if he's right?

Now that our news hole has been overstuffed with presidential sexcapades, the Asian flu, the wobbly ruble, international terrorism and stories about the Green Bay Packers, could it be that what America needs is a nicer brand of journalism? A press that isn't so, well, pressing? No more "if it bleeds, it leads"?

Who among us wouldn't like to see the New York Times front-page an interview with a White House intern who alleges the president didn't fondle her? Perhaps the Washington Post can breathlessly inform us the next time no new special grand juries have been convened. Or the AP can send out an urgent dispatch when nothing blows up in Northern Ireland.

The evening news would certainly be more entertaining. Nothing gathers the family around the electronic eye like a gripping report about nothing much going on:

... And now we're going live to Sue Tripathi at the scene of the nonincident. Sue: "I'm here with Regular Joe, who wasn't murdered, robbed, assaulted, gunned down by rogue policemen, hit by a drunken driver or otherwise hassled today. How does it feel, Joe? ..."

Joe: "Uhhh ... er ... huh?"

I know I'd like to see, say, Dan Rather reporting live from the site of undisasterous nonflooding, no hurricane winds whipping his stylish foreign correspondent's safari jacket. "Everything's normal here, Bob. Back to you." Perhaps such an approach could even act as a social fabric softener, seeding a more decent national atmosphere, conditioning people toward pleasanter dealings with each other ...

Fortunately, I regained my senses the closer we got to home. By gosh, of course my friend isn't right! Good news is boring! I don't mean boring to consume -- everyone acknowledges that. Periodic stabs at smiley-face journalism have withered on the vine as all eyes turn to O.J. coverage. I don't care much about that.

No, I mean it's boring to report. I didn't say as much to my friend, but that's the reality on this side of the byline. There's nothing quite like the jolt of sitting down to your terminal with a notebook full of hot potato. (I'm not talking about death and dismemberment stories, which no one likes to do.) Garden club stories are rarely much fun to write.

Of course, I'm not that way at all. Nope. Journalism doesn't get any nicer than in this column. In fact, I'm off to the garden club right now.

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