The comfort of bad news

One recent morning when I turned on the TV the news programs coincidentally featured stories about gruesome incidents. One channel had a reporter talking about a fatal car accident, another had the anchor talking about a shooting spree in a gym, and another had an aerial shot from a helicopter showing houses engulfed in flames. The only place I could find something innocuous was to switch over to SportsCenter, and that was only safe because the local team had won their game last night.

Good news is no news.

It's not so much that good news is intrinsically uninteresting; it's that good news frightens us.

I'll elaborate.

Reporting good news rings of hubris; it's almost beseeching the Fates to bring about something bad. When something bad has happened, the proverbial other shoe has fallen, and as ridiculous as it seems, it almost allows for breathing easier; we know what has gone wrong.

With good news, we're left uneasy, concerned about when it will turn to bad news.

There's no logical reason for this, but somehow it seems accepted on a tacit level even by the ardently scientific. Something deep down says: Karma is a bitch. Stay humble.

Bad news sucks, but we're better prepared for it than the good stuff.

Oh yeah, we have issues, but at least we have the morning news to distract us from those...