I wonder how news, or what we call news, became all the ugly, despicable things humans do. Why aren't we just ashamed and embarrassed when our fellow beings show how ugly and immoral they can be? Why is it the garbage that we send reporters out to record? How did the garbage get to be interesting?
I, for one, would like to see a newspaper that glorifies stories like Julia O'Malley's story of the nearly blind elderly woman who gets up every morning to see the children of her neighborhood off to school with a hug — there is a story that sings the song of the human spirit, a story that says "yes" to life. We can be like this; we need more people like this to show us what human beings can be, not news of the gutter rats that some sink to.
Sure there will be deeply disturbed people who use guns to destroy and maim but must we blow their despicable acts all over the media as if they were superheroes or something, as if they were people to be copied and envied? They are people to be shunned and pitied for the unfortunate wretches that they are; we should be embarrassed to have them even be members of our species.
— Tim Barr
Anchorage