Is the media's fairness fair?

Some of you may have noticed that New York was not destroyed by hurricane Irene.

Some of you may not even know about what has been happening on the East Coast of the USA, so here is a brief catch up. There was a hurricane, its name was Irene. It went up the East coast of the USA. It reached New York and did very little damage, even though they were prepared for something a lot worse. Locals said it was 'just like any other tropical storm'.

Since then the New York city government has been ridiculed somewhat for over preparing.

Yeah I know! Over-preparing!?! What? Is that like being too rich, or too knowledgeable, ie things that aren't really bad at all because they are easily rectified and more often than not useful, not detrimental?

Sure if the mayor of New York had made everyone get into nuclear bomb shelters and didn't let them out for two days, I can imagine it would be time to kick off. But what happened was that high risk areas were evacuated, and then when the storm passed they left. How is this bad?

It bothers me that people in positions of responsibility these days can't win. Prepare too little, everything that happens is your fault, prepare too much, you get ridiculed for making too much of something, get it just right, well thats your job anyway, what congratulations do you need?

Occasionally, someone may actually say 'well done', but generally the life of a politician I think is one of a gratitude vacuum. Is this a good thing? I'm thinking not.

I guess the reason why newspapers rarely say good things about politicians is because they don't want to be seen as bias. But isn't it more bias never to report good stories than reporting them?

Maybe I just don't pick up on the stories that are positive but it just seems there is a growing attitude of dissatisfaction. This isn't helped by the further two points that the media seems to love.

1) Always give a blanced view point.

OK, OK, I know what you're thinking, surely you're in favour of a blanced view point? Well sure, in theory it sounds fine, but in reality it is impossible. Sure, when one thinks of creationism and evolution you can understand why both view points need to be represented.. But if you apply the idea to everything you end up having extreme view points broadcast or printed that don't really make sense. No matter what any political party does, no matter what any leader or citizen does, there is always going to be some sort of association somewhere that disagrees. Which means when Jeremy Clarkson makes a joke about truck drivers killing prostitutes, the media go to a hualiage company for comments. And when the hauliage company respond in a perfectly reasonable way (which was basically 'it was a joke, we're not offended, it isn't meant to be taken seriously') the media strain themselves further to find some organisation that will give them the pointless fury they desire (the English Collective of Prostitutes,) whoever they may be.

This means that there is always some negative view point and that in some cases they are clearly opinions that are off the wall. But the point is one man's off the wall, crazy view point, it anothers fair point, so no one can really decide for everyone else what a reasonable or wacky opinion is. And so every idots view gets heard. This then leads on to the next point; which is,

2) Nothing goes far enough

More money for pensioners? Not enough. More money for fighting knife crime? Not enough. More police on the street? No enough. Less regulation/more regulation for banks? Not enough/too much. Whatever someone does there is almost always a group willing to say that it doesn't go far enough.

Well, that might be their opinion, and I'm sure it is. But think of the world we're making for ourselves. We're making a world where nothing is ever good enough (which to an extent is true) but also where no improvement or victory or success is really apprciated. That isn't good.

So I'm going to do the reverse. I'm going to take a few minutes to scan the web and congratuate those in office on some of the things that they've done in the past few weeks.

1) Congratulations to the New York Major for helping keep people were safe through hurricane Irene.
2)Well done to the coalition government for getting the 'free schools' work done, so that this Autumn 24 free schools will open their doors
3) Congratulations to all the fighters who have managed to take Tripoli in Libya, and to all the NATO forces who have helped with the fighting (I hope and pray that the transition council make wise decisions that lead to a prosperous and free country)
4) Big welcome too, to the government initiative to force Universities to publish data on their courses regarding the employment rates of people on that course and their post degree salaries.
(so now you'll be able to see whether there is any point in doing a degree of a certain kind in a certain university).