No Worries

There is a saying to the effect that there are no stupid questions. As much as I understand the sentiment, there are times when I'm inclined to disagree. Mainly, it turns out, when journalists are interviewing someone and they ask, about one or another topic "how worried should we be?"

I understand the impetus behind the question. But I think that it indicates that fear is, in and of itself, an appropriate or useful response to things.

Katherine Wu, over at The Atlantic, summed up my feelings on the matter when she was asked "How much should we be panicking [about the Omicron SARS-CoV-2 variant] right now?" Her answer: "Not at all. It’s never time to panic. It’s counterproductive. Reacting wisely and reacting sensibly and using the tools we have is always the best move." And I'd like to see more journalists take this tack in general. Rather than asking experts how frightened the public should be, they should be asking what actions the public can take, or what actions the public should be pushing their governments to take. And if journalists don't change course, maybe their interview subjects should.

I'm going to admit that I'm not terribly familiar with the genre of news that's been billed "Solutions Journalism," but I suspect that to the degree that it actually focuses on the solutions to societal problems rather than simply flogging what continues to go wrong, that it can't be any worse than the old "if it bleeds it leads" model. Since reactions that are wise and sensible are often in the eye of the beholder, the expectation that Solutions Journalism will focus on things that have been demonstrated to work is welcome. People can, and do, argue with results, but results give more to argue with, and for, than opinions about what should be done.

What will really drive a turn towards Solutions Journalism, or at least away from fear-mongering, is public demand. And, more than likely, the demand just isn't there yet. But if the news influences the public as much as people often say it does, maybe they would do well to lay the groundwork for a better product.