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Good News!—Read All About it!

A long time ago, when I was first starting out in the news business, I visited the night editor at the Chicago Sun-Times. He told me the story of a woman who called one night complaining bitterly that the Sun-Times never printed any positive news. The editor asked her to give him some examples of positive news and the lady quickly supplied a list of them. Then editor asked, “Where did you find out about those stories?” There was a long pause, followed by a sigh and the admission that the woman had read about those positive stories in the newspaper.

    There are two morals to this story. The first one, dear to that editor’s heart, is that newspapers, TV news, etc., do indeed publish or broadcast positive news. The other moral, however, was illustrated by the woman’s phone call. Yes, the

positive news is there, but it is often so buried by all the negative, and tragic stuff that we hardly notice it.

    I’m not one of those who say we should stick our heads in the sand and ignore the tragedies of the world. However, I do believe that positive stores are the ones that nourish our spirits and feed our souls. Tragedies like the devastating earthquake in Haiti can stir our compassion and inspire us to rush needed aid. Hopeful, inspirational stories, however, are often the ones that give us the strength to move toward real change.

    One example of this is the work done by Best Friends Animal Society (bestfriends.org). Best Friends is guided by the philosophy that kindness to animals builds a better world for all of us. They are

world leaders in the no-kill animal movement. Early on, they decided to take a positive news approach. While recognizing the horrors of animal abuse and a shelter system that regularly euthanized seventeen million cats and dogs each year, they felt that graphic, negative stories were actually counterproductive. Negative stories cause a sense of hopelessness, a feeling that nothing could be done to change the system. Positive success stories cause a sense of hopefulness and energize folks to go out and make positive changes in their own communities. Their efforts must be working. Since Best Friends began their no-kill efforts in the 1980s, the number of animals euthanized has dropped to five million—still a lot, but the effort continues.