Reader’s Digest’s recent filing of Chapter 11 bankruptcy is a tough to swallow for all Listerine addicts around the country. For the last 80 years, dentist offices have been littered with countless copies of the publication. Cavities and inspirational stories seem to go together like Iowa City and bar crawls.
The heartwarming feeling you get from the tale invariably sticks in your mind while the dentist is stabbing your gums with a 3-inch needle.
The remarkable rise and swift downfall of Reader’s Digest is a toothache that no amount of Novocain can take away. Dollars speak loudly in this country, and the magazine’s lack of ad sales and readership revenue was too big of a void to ignore. But the average American readers must understand their high-intensity, vulture-like magnetism toward bad news is partly to blame for Reader’s Digest going belly-up.
In our nation, “gotcha politics” meets “gotcha news,” overshadowing the witty quips and positive profiles of national do-gooders. When Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, claims (however falsely) Obama wants grandma and grandpa to kick the bucket after the 9 o’clock hour of “Matlock,” we have become a people who consume the melancholic.
As journalists, we will always honor the time-tested coverage of conflict and societal issues, as Edward R. Murrow would have wanted. But maybe we should put our panic button down for one second and reach for the cooler side of life. Health care has been on our docket — and rightfully so — since FDR was in office. The occasional respite from the doldrums of war and chaos can lead to an enlightened path.
Learn about the work volunteers are doing for Habitat for Humanity in Johnson County. Find out why these men and women get involved in such a worthy endeavor despite the lack of fanfare. The next time you visit your favorite news site, read a human-interest piece with your morning coffee, while still keeping the genocide in Darfur in your mind. There are numerous inspiring tales that can be read daily in this country, not just from the pages of Reader’s Digest.
It’s a journalistic truism that the readers are who we cater to. Our ethics — and, to a much lesser degree, our bottom line — dictate adherence to such an axiom. If news breaks in Iowa City that a drunk driver killed a pedestrian, it would be covered by every news outlet — and its significance wouldn’t be diminished in the slightest by its depressing nature. It’s just a fact of life. Crime gets ratings, or, in our case, newspaper sales.
But inspirational articles are just as important as the crime beat. It’s why The Daily Iowa will profile the men and women who, just by being themselves, are inspirations to us all or have a unique or poignant story to tell in our new Spotlight Iowa City series. Look for these upcoming pieces and digest the divine nature of good karma with your daily oatmeal-raisin muffin. Journalists occasionally have to push the muck aside and find the gems that make us laugh, cry, or both. Life is hard. Sometimes it can be gruesomely dire. But if we are true journalists, our ultimate job is to tell stories, the good along with the bad.
My attempts at bridging the gap between the good and the bad news in our culture may highlight my naïve nature of positivity. I just see it as more evidence that my often-referenced liberal education hasn’t tarnished one core emotional sentiment.
Hope.
