Humans need Hope
This fresh new Southern Magnolia blossom on the little tree we planted last fall sparks my nostrils with citrus sweet smell and touches my heart through my eyes. Beauty rouses hope in the continuation of life. We humans need hope. Need beauty, truth, insight in order to take useful action in our challenging world.
I want my writing, even my description of scary news about climate change or gun violence to contain morsels of hope that will spur people to action rather than depress them into stupor. Otherwise, what is the point of being barraged by constant news of war, poverty, disease and cruel death?
An editorial by Amanda Ripley in the WP today was a journalist’s honest admission that she has stopped reading the news. It depresses and immobilizes her to have “news creep into every crevice of life.” Once she admitted that she no longer watched television news and was limiting print news, she found many journalist friends doing the same, along with 40% of the American public who avoided the news altogether!
I had a similar reaction after working for the Washington Post’s television news bureau for five years. I quit watching television news and preferred print versions with analysis and varied points of view, not just endless repetition of microphones shoved into the faces of mother’s whose children had been shot. I felt that the new 24/7 news stations were required to shock, scare and keep the attention of viewers primarily in order to sell advertising. The type of in-depth reporting for which the WP was respected began to deteriorate. I wanted to stay informed without being manipulated and emotionally disturbed.
Amand Ripley’s solution? Change the way news is reported to fit the human beings receiving it. To report news that 1) gives people HOPE, 2) AGENCY (offering suggestions of actions to take on climate change and gun violence), and 3) DIGNITY (“the feeling that I matter, that my life has some worth”). She said “There is a way to communicate news – including very bad news – that leaves us better off as a result. A way to spark anger and action. Empathy alongside dignity. Hope alongside fear.” She ended her article with an example of interviewing people at an anti-abortion rally who held views different from her own. She tried to keep an open mind, to ask real questions in order to hear the answers, not just to obtain the catchy soundbite. Understanding the interviewees helped them feel more human. Helped the journalist feel more human, more humble. Perhaps her readers had a similar response.
Whatever I write, I hope that it touches people’s hearts and encourages them to be part of life, to connect with the beauty all around us, in us, in every human being we encounter, to more deeply understand and help relieve their suffering.
Power of Love 