- One surivies; thirty-two die in UN plane crash.
- Youth in court over schoolgirl stabbing.
- Teenager charged over shot five-year old girl.
- Canal murderer to die in jail.
- Sain police to name second victim.
BBC News isn't much better. In addition to the above, it makes room for mentioning the ongoing conflicts in Lybia and the Ivory Coast, paedophila, and the copper who killed Ian Tomlinson is giving evidence. It is almost too much to take in. News, almost by very definition, is inherantly filled with upsetting things.
Would you be suprised if a grim faced reporter told you tomorrow that the moon had melted, that romance had been stabbed in a street mugging, and every flower in the world had been infected by a virus that made them all wither and die? Cue scenes of council workers, their faces a mask of anguish, digging mass flowery graves on roundabouts and embankments up and down the country. A man in an yellow bib, his face set but his lip quivering, would tell us that he'd worked for the council for twenty years and never seen anything like it. It wouldn't be bad for long, though, because the day after we'd all lose our ability to see colours.
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| "Tonight: Last rainbow speared by Japanese Whaler. Confectionary causes cancer and orphans to be used as Winter Fuel Allowance. We've got the latest." |
The news seems to have been a rolling downward spiral of despair for as long as I can remember. But somewhere at the back of my mind I can remember the dazzling smile of a Calander presenter as she happily told us that today a Yorkshire Terrier had been rescued from a drainpipe in Scunthorpe to scenes of jubilation from the local community. You don't get that anymore. It's all grisly murders, government cuts, war and famine and all that miserable stuff. In opposition, I propose the invention of a 24 hour rolling news network that focus' only on good things. There was a website, featured in the Metro, with a similar premise, although I'm never sure how it quite worked out.
Nakednews, as far as I'm aware, was a news website in which presenters held their audience captive by removing their clothes during broadcasts. Apart from the casual attitude towards full frontal nudity, it was apparently a rather reputable and informative news medium. We can only postulate how someone could suggestively remove their underwear while visions of the North Tower exploding in a fireball are on repeat in the background and maintain a monotone, deadpan presenter face. Perhaps they got the cheerful basics right, I'm sure it takes the edge off most of the trauma.
We need to go further. Keep the premsie, scrap the nudity.
We can call it Happy - TV, or something suitably cheery. Presenters could dress as if every day were Red Nose Day. A cheery young presenter dressed as lobster, with a smile that leaves no doubt she's tripping balls on LSD, could inform us about good things that have happened in the world recently. You know, good things. The things that used to happen to us, before it started raining razorblades and glass, and the sun imploded, and terrorists started stealing our jobs and spreading bird-flu.
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