The art of watching bad news...or not

The cascade of bad news, human-generated and otherwise, has been pretty overwhelming lately. The two main Dylan songs going through my head lately are "Everything is Broken" and "World Gone Wrong."

Today I ran across some useful information that might help in dealing with bad news in the media. For one thing, being glued to the set while ill **** is going down can cause serious and acute stress. One study conducted in the wake of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing found that the stress reactions of news junkies glued to the TV were as bad or worse than those of people actually much closer to the real event.

A good guide to dealing with breaking bad news can be found in the On The Media blog's resource, The Breaking News Consumer's Handbook, which starts with the reminder that early news reports are likely to get things wrong. Among other points is a warning to be skeptical of anonymous sources and hoaxes. There's also good advice about not uncritically retweeting or otherwise posting information that may be unreliable.

Finally, here are some suggestions from the American Friends Service Committee's Media Uncovered project.. Here's one suggestion: "Turn off the TV, put down your phone, and do something else."  The bad news will still be there. But rather than being glued to the set (or phone) it might be good to take some time to reflect, to spend time with those you care about, consider taking positive action, and send your best to those suffering from the crisis at hand.

Stating the obvious

One thing that disasters like WV's recent floods remind us of, if we need it, is that there's a role for government in our everyday life. Such as responding to disasters, promoting public safety, promoting public health, maintaining our infrastructure. All that kind of stuff. As amazing as volunteers can be, they can't do it all.

Here's a great op-ed on that theme by a friend of mine whose home was damaged when the Elk River rose. I hope that decision makers--and voters--think about things like that.

Who'll stop the rain?

Even as much of WV tries to muck its way out of the 2016 flood, more rain is hitting the Mountain State. In some areas already hit, flash flood watches have turned to warnings. On the brighter side, the estimated death toll is down to 23 from yesterday's estimate of 25.

Here's some good coverage from the Charleston Gazette-Mail.

For those who want to contribute to flood relief, here are two credible agencies (admittedly out of many others): Catholic Charities and WV VOAD (Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster).

People who want to get directly involved have been encouraged to register with Volunteer WV rather than self-deploy, although that hasn't stopped plenty of people and groups.

As is almost always the case, the disaster has also brought out the best in many people. I'm reminded of the book  A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disasters by Rebecca Solnit (see earlier Goat Rope post here). Here's one story about how hundreds of people stranded at a shopping plaza in Elkview got treated to an epic cookout by Kroger's employees.

I guess it was another case of making lemon-aid. Or cheeseburgers.

Here's hoping WV gets through the night with minimal additional damage.

On the bright side...

In yesterday's post, I speculated darkly on whether modern civilization is heading towards some kind of major downturn due to inaction on climate change and such. Since this is Thanksgiving week and all, I thought it only fitting to give a shout out to a look at the bright side of disasters.

Recently a friend loaned me a copy of A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disasters by Rebecca Solnit. The author makes the interesting argument that sometimes when disasters happen, people respond with the courage, compassion, generosity, mutual aid and solidarity all too rarely seen in ordinary life.

I've noticed something like that in less drastic interruptions of ordinary life, such as major snowstorms, power outages and floods. As unpleasant as such things can be, people often come together in amazing ways and can have a good time doing it.

So even if things get bad, which I hope they won't, it might not be all bad all the time. I guess we can be thankful for that.

NOTE: I'm off this week. Posts will appear as usual but without the links and comments.