HEART OF STEELE

If you only listened to national news last week, you might think there was very little good left in the world.

Yet another deadly school shooting. The indictment of a former president. Tornadoes tearing through several states, leaving behind more than a dozen people dead and millions in property damage. Another train derailment and evacuation, this time in our own state.

This may look strange coming from a journalist, but I think the 24/7 news cycle has done more harm than good. We now know every bad thing that happens, and we know it sometimes moments after it happens.

Without the guardrail of time to gather information and check sources and stories, news in many cases unfolds in real time. Viewers and readers draw their own conclusions–right or wrong.

Even worse, we may be led to believe that the world is in chaos and good things rarely happen.

And if you live in Steele County, you know that’s just not true.

The pages of this paper are filled with the kinds of stories larger news outlets hardly ever report. This week, it’s thousands of dollars raised for a local women’s shelter and Habitat for Humanity, changes planned for a church Spring Fair, a group of quilters, and a fundraiser for a young man from our community who’s fighting for his life.

Obviously, we cover all local news–the mundane, the nitty-gritty, even the horrifying. The details of one court story in this week’s edition were excruciating to read.

But the “hard” news reporting is balanced–sometimes overwhelmed–by stories about people who are doing good all around us.

We and thousands of other local news reporters focus attention on the good deeds that, according to Shakespeare (or Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka) shine “in a weary world.”

It’s the kind of work that, for 30 years, has done my heart a world of good. I hope it has yours as well.