Media focus on the negative, ignoring new signs of stability
Dec 11, 2019, 3:40 PM
(Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
Today’s media tend to focus on alarming news, while ignoring or distorting encouraging indicators all around us.
A recent development trumpeted in the New York Times with the headline: “Frozen in Place” reported that Americans move to new homes at the lowest rate on record. The Wall Street Journal also decried this trend, calling baby boomers “the biggest culprits,” for declining to downsize and causing a “sluggish housing market.”
Actually, a tendency to remain long-term in one home is an indication of growing stability that can contribute to the development of more meaningful community ties.
In the past, sociologists fretted over American restlessness and rootlessness, with our citizens shifting to new homes twice as quickly as they do today. But this recent trend towards stability represents a positive change, and the media decision to complain about it is just another sign that we don’t have a news business in America; we have a bad news business.