Eugene Kane and Positive Events

In the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel today, Eugene Kane's column focuses on the notion that "positive events rarely make the news."

That's true enough.

For example, recent news reports have been about dams giving way as a result of the storms. The dams go unnoticed when there's no fear about them failing.

Again and again, we've seen the terrible images of homes being washed away in Lake Delton. We don't see images of homes NOT being washed away.

How many times did you see the terrorists fly the hijacked planes into the World Trade Center towers? The towers weren't newsworthy when they stood.

That's the nature of news. For the most part, it's the unusual events that get reported. Thankfully, the negative and the tragic and the terrifying stuff is the aberration.

The nature of what constitutes "news" isn't a racial thing.

But naturally, Eugene Kane sees a racial component in what's reported.

He writes:

Andre Lee Ellis has been the coordinator for the Garfield Avenue Blues, Jazz, Gospel and Arts Festival for the past seven years.

As we talked about the trouble with unruly behavior at a recent downtown festival, he reminded me I have never written about the Garfield Ave. event.

He’s right. I never wrote about it because nothing bad happened.

“That’s the way it always happens with the media,” said Ellis, an actor and longtime community activist in town. “They never want to talk about the positive events in the black community.”

I do remember getting press releases from Ellis and other organizers of the popular Garfield Ave. festival in the past seeking coverage of the 11-year-old street festival, which is held in the city’s Halyard Park neighborhood just a stone’s throw from King Drive. It’s a daylong party of food, fun and music with an eclectic schedule of performers in a neighborhood where stable black homeowners have created a pocket of serenity in the inner city.

I have even attended a few Garfield Ave. festivals in the past, but I never wrote about it. Again, that's mainly because nobody got shot or beat up, and police were never called to quell a disturbance.

Which is exactly Ellis' point.

It may be that the media "never want to talk about the positive events in the black community."

But it's also true that the media never want to talk about the positive events in the white community.

Should the media put more focus on positive events?

The positive doesn't get the ratings.

Wall-to-wall coverage of storms or impending storms boosts viewership.

Wall-to-wall coverage of sunshine and clear, starry nights would not.