I really love to watch CBS Sunday Morning because, in my opinion, they have the format in the correct order. They start off with a 5 minute segment that includes current events and then they start in on human interest stories. According to definitions.net: “In journalism, a human interest story is a feature story that discusses a person or people in an emotional way. It presents people and their problems, concerns, or achievements in a way that brings about interest or sympathy in the reader or viewer.”
That is what we are missing in our news programs. We need that emotional attachment instead of the feeling like everything is going to hell in a hand-basket. The 24-hour news networks are constantly hammering doom and gloom with a topping of their own agenda into our heads. Plus, we have social media spreading this information even further and thicker so we begin to believe that good cannot possibility grow in our society, but it does! Good things are happening all the time. I always thought it would be awesome if there was an alternative news station that just reported human interest stories from all over the globe. These stories could be everything from the mundane to the extraordinary. During this quarantine time I have been using my own experiences and imagining how I would report on them. For example, “Today in Clemmons there lives a woman of 49 who enjoys picking blueberries with her dog Scoop. They love coming out in the morning dew with the sun laying low in the sky. She has a small basket in hand, to look for these tiny sweet treats. Scoop will nibble at the low hanging fruit while her mom harvests the higher branches…” What fun, right! This is how we create what we want to see in our world. The world doesn’t have to be filled with goblins around every turn and even when we encounter one it doesn’t have to devastate us and make us throw in the towel. It is way to easy to give into how the media wants you think and behave. I like to think of this way, the human body is made up of around 60% water, so we are like walking aquariums. What happens if we keep allowing crap to settle in our tanks? it becomes toxic and fish begin dying; however, if we have a filter and we clean out our tank from time to time we are not affected as much by what excrement we encounter. I just wanted to point out that I am a realist and I am not trying to hide from the world, but I think there needs to be a balance and we need to find strategies to ride the inevitable waves of change; therefore, I don’t think a few moments of reflection about what good came out of the day is too much to ask. Is there a good time to do this reflection? I would say that depends on the individual. Personally, I like to take little snapshot of the moment, like a photograph, as it happens. I am getting better at writing these moments down, which has become a necessity during my new adventures in Menopauslandia. I really do hope to see more shows like CBS Sunday morning in the future, but until then I will continue to do my part by showcasing the good in the world and also sharing how adversity can be overcome. As a small business owner, I can reach many people in our community, so I am on a mission to share their human interest stories. If you are interested in sharing your story, please contact me so you can be heard. This is important work we can do for the world.