Oh please

I don’t like criticizing The Associated Press. Normally, I think the AP does a laudable job. While cable networks, for example, obsess over Hollywood starlets and minutiae from the presidential campaign, the global network of AP stringers seems to cover everything and anything – one has only to check, say, Google or Yahoo News for loads of substantive stories. All that said, this week the AP published a story that was simply stunning in its wrong-headedness – an extraordinary combination of a bizarre concept, poorly supported speculation and even disservice to the public. And while such things might have their place (say, in some of my columns), they really shouldn’t be labeled as hard news.\nThe story I’m talking about is June 22’s “Everything seemingly is spinning out of control” by Alan Fram and Eileen Putman. The article opens by asking if things are, indeed, “spinning out of control,” then proceeds to list every bit of bad news it can muster (many in the opening paragraph): floods in the Midwest; global warming; gas prices; falling home values; expensive air fare, college tuition and health care; war in Afghanistan and Iraq; the earthquake in China; the cyclone in Burma; Hurricane Katrina; rising food prices; thunderstorms causing electrical outages; drought in California; the weak U.S. dollar; the winter writer’s strike; the internet killing newspapers and video rental stores; steroids in baseball; crooked referees in basketball; and doping in bicycling. No matter that the connections between many of these things are highly tenuous at best.\nThe article then speculates about whether Americans will be able to deal with all these simply unbearable problems, and reaches the implied conclusion: no. The highlight of this section is when, after comparing current problems to past crises such as the Great Depression, the article quotes historian Allan J. Lichtman as saying “All those periods were followed by much more optimistic periods in which the American people had their confidence restored ... Of course, that doesn’t mean it will happen again.”\nOh, give me a break!\nI’m not trying to say that nothing’s wrong or to promote a sense of false optimism. There are plenty of big problems that need to be tackled. And some issues we can strive against, but will probably never solve: intolerance, violence, the dilemma between economic growth and economic equality, etc. And, sure, the present is rockier than some periods of the past. But we’re supposed to believe that the present is worse than the 1970s – home to Vietnam, Watergate, high unemployment and prices due to stagflation, and out-of-control violent crime? Or the 1940s – with millions upon millions killed in wars and genocide? Or the 1930s – with 25 percent unemployment in 1933, unchecked racism and sexism, the rise of totalitarian regimes throughout the world and, again, raging crime?\nAlright, so things aren’t at their greatest, but past generations faced far greater challenges, and they got through them. Sure, there are problems today – but to tackle them, we need the information that comes from honest reporting, not manufactured hopelessness.