Why Should We Not Make the News?

March 9, 2009 by David Eggleton

One of my pet peeves is mere speculation reported as news. Reading the front page of a newspaper, I want to find information concerning what has happened, not the thinking of one or some about what might happen someday. Am I to regard a reporter's collection and arrangement of opinions an event resembling an arrival, a premiere or a breakthrough? It seems so.
 
I always sense in such reports an attempt to shape or contain the public's expectations and/or thoughts about possibilities. I always wonder whose interests are served by the endorsement of the selected thoughts. Ordinarily they are not mine, as I know them.
 
I recognize an irony in my complaint; for more than two months, I have been the lone blogger of Woburnite.com. Here many can read what I think and hope. The difference is that a blog is not a newspaper, but a soap box, and readers know it.
 
What got me started this time was an item that begins on page one of today's Boston Globe.  The main title, Innovation may fuel economic recovery, drew my interest because I believe that innovation will get us out of this mess. The subtitle, a declaration of fact, was not bad either: Technology has saved Mass. before. However, the first substantial sentence annoyed: "When the economy finally snaps back, technology is expected to be the catalyst that pulls Massachusetts out of its doldrums, just as it has in the past."  Remarks followed from six comfortable guys who are probably very nice, expressing confidence in "an influx of bright inventors, researchers and engineers." They mentioned neither climate change nor peak oil.
 
The influx is anticipated as the brainy specialists escape or forgo careers in financial engineering, which were attractive to them until recently, when some engineered devices proved faulty and THE ECONOMY couldn't help noticing.
 
We should simply wait for them to create and deliver our next future? That's an option someone wants us to choose, but why can't we be innovators in our communities? Why should we of this locale remain fully dependent on THE ECONOMY? Why should we again put all our eggs in one basket? Why should we remain mere consumers?
 
Why should we not make the news?