The Herald published a letter to the editor on Jan. 11 about the newspaper’s focus on negative news. I’ve subscribed since the mid-’60s, and also noted that “negative news focus.” The writer may have added a bit of political inference in his letter, but we’re all entitled to our views.
I recall, many years back, I made a similar “negative news” comment to a person who was obviously more intelligent than I; didn’t have to look far to find one. He noted that both good things and bad things happen, but I knew that.
What he did point out was that when there’s lots of good stuff going on, then bad stuff is the news. When there’s mostly bad stuff going on, well then we’d be reading about the seldom found good things in life. We can only hope we never read an edition of The Herald focusing mostly on positive news.
The writer also mentioned the downward spiral of the Washington Post. Papers may have a political bent, just as we find with network TV news, but they also have editors who endeavor to ensure that what they print is truthful, or from a substantiated source. Who would buy your paper if all you did was print malarkey? A good paper will also print updates, retractions and corrections, as does The Herald.
There is one way that The Herald could improve: dump that sports section and add another page of comics.
Ron Larsen
Everett
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