Staying Positive With the BBC

Every so often I might wander over to CNN. But just to glance the top headlines. To catch up if I've been out of touch - I don't own a TV. Mostly though, even that duty has been relegated to MSN and even, the BBC.

Besides CNN.com's systematic dumbing down in the last year - continued reporting on all things inane, ranging from Suri Cruise to Lindsay Lohan, as well as the introduction of Cliff's Notes at the top of every page - I grew sick of the sensationalized "death reporting" that I would continuously find there. Whether it's "husband killed in car accident on the way to wife's funeral," a story about a man being partially eaten by a pet after having a seizure, or another about a man being sucked into a grain processor, there's always a few Faces of Death stories. Perhaps with the demands of the internet and our diminished attention spans, they feel it's necessary to appeal to people with it didn't happen to me so it's funny-type humor. Indeed, these are the stories that get emailed, talked about at lunch, or cause someone to pop out of their cubicle and start chatting at Clonetech Masturbatory Ent.

Maybe I feel this way having grown up with Philly's local !ACTION!F$#%ING NEWS! where everybody seems to be getting shot all the time while half the city is on fire - all being captured by that amazing gyro cam with High Definition Image Quality.

That's not to say that other stations are any more righteous. Media outlets all across the country do the same thing on continuous basis.

Glancing at BBC.com I came across a better alternative. Instead of someone falling into a giant blender at a cookie factory or being tripped down a flight of steps by the family cat (I made these two up but the others are actual stories I recall reading on CNN), you can read superfluous stories with happy endings. Instead of the grim hand of fate, BBC likes to focus on the opposite end of the spectrum, with people and pets surviving the impossible. There's the dog who chased a seagull right off a cliff and survived a 200-foot fall uninjured(aarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrHHHHHH). Try the duck that survived two gunshots as well as two days in the fridge. There’s the drunk guy who ran through the floor-to-ceiling window at his hotel and survived the 17 story fall. Just as good, is the case of the Aussie who stopped a shark from biting his head off by stabbing at it with his abalone chisel. (AUSSIE! AUSSIE! AUSSIE! Oy! Oy! Oy!)

That’s not to say CNN, or anyone else, overlooks these stories - they introduced the shark attack story with the much more sensational headline, “Shark Chomps Man’s Head While Diving For Weeds” (he was diving for tasty abalone), as opposed to the BBC’s, “Man Survives Shark Bite Attack” or the updated headline, "Diver Escapes From Shark's Jaws." Certainly, the BBC can sometimes be guilty of passing off gloom in a near tabloid fashion as well, but I find it’s never as bad as the people employed by Ted Turner.

Photo by Flickr user kerryank