Bad News
2
140 ExpoS>tton GroJl'ing Up in N,"p Guinea or .norher book. How does rhe discussion illumÍnare the starement of Mead? Suggestions for Writing 1. State an idea of your own rdared ro changing rclationships be- tween parents and chílmen. Devdop rhe idea mrough a series of bricf observations or personal experiences. Condude your essay with rhe example thar you considcr most rcvcaling or de- ClSlve. 2. Develop one of the following statements mrough a series of examplcs drawn fro111 yonr observarion and personal cxpen- ence: a. The ti<sr week in a new school can be frustrating. b. Words often have differenr meanings tor parents and chíl- dren. e. Making friends Ís often hard work. The New Yorker Bad News [he NI'W York"" Magazim publishes sorne of the best and most influential social and potitica! commentary of leading American wr;ters. John Hersey's Hiyoshima, Rache! Carson's Si/ent Sprit'tl, and Jonathan ScheJl's The Fate ofehe Earth lirst .ppe.red in The New Yorker. Eaeh i,sue opens with a sccrion titlcd "Thc Talk ol" the collcct1on of shorr sketches and commentaries writtoll by the stalf of the magazine. E. B. Whitc, ]OM Updike, and Lillian Ros, havo writtcn many of tilese. 1'11i5 commentary on reading the news is taken from HThe Talk of the Town. n From time to rime, peopk complaín mat rhe papers don't prim any good news. (Presidenrs, especially tend to complain © 1984 The New Yorkcr Magaúne, Ine. Reprinted by pennission. Had Nt."1l 1 ,)' 141 about this.) First off, ir isn't entirely tme. lt we never see an- other srory abour a man who wins a mili ion dol1ars playing Lorto or MiUionaire's Roulette or Lucky Bucks and is going tO keep his Job at the post office becausc he likes ro work maybe he'l1 buy an' we never see another srory that, we won'r kick. Bur, anyway, good news is not a newspaper's Job. We don't mean this the way ir sounds, some civics-dass, watchdog-of-the-democratic-process, Fourth Estate sense. We mean rhat psychological1y there 1S some- thing reassuring about the newspaper because ir is full of bad news--the same bad news each morning. Not precisely the sarue bad news, but close enough. On any gíven morning, the front page of the Times should leave people in tears. As we write this, we are looking at the tOP stories fmm last Wednesday. The Soviet Union i5 reported overrunning a val- ley in Afghanistan mee using high-altitude bombing ro soften up the resistance; talk continues about outer-spac:e Jaser weapol1s; in thc Dominican Rcpublic people are dying in rÍots sparked by inereases in food prices. We should be angry, sad, and moved to aetíon, bm we are, at worsr, mildly depressed in a familiar, unfocussed way. Colonel Qaddafi says some- thing evil, or was it Ayatollall Khomeinil There are thugs on !he F train; last week, they rode the No. 6. A house burns down in Brooklyn, and another the next day, and 1:\",0 more the day after rhar. There is no sense rcaeting, we think; this i5 how the world is. Everythillg bad has already happened and will happen again. On slow news days-the days when the Ncw York Times 2 actually Ieads with a story about something taking place New York--we sometímes feel a little llneasy. lf not much is going wrong this morning, what could be in storc for to- morrow? And occasionally, when somerhing does give us pause, likeiy as not ¡t's only because it is something freak- ish-something we hadn't worried about before--and we ac- cept ir iato our picrure of rhe inevitable world, and read abour it froID then 011 with detachment. Last week, Kitty Wolf was driving her grandson Robert tO the airpott so that he could
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140 ExpoS>tton
GroJl'ing Up in N,"p Guinea or .norher book. How does rhe discussion illumnare the starement of Mead?
Suggestions for Writing 1. State an idea of your own rdared ro changing rclationships be
tween parents and chlmen. Devdop rhe idea mrough a series of bricf observations or personal experiences. Condude your essay with rhe example thar you considcr most rcvcaling or deClSlve.
2. Develop one of the following statements mrough a series of examplcs drawn fro111 yonr observarion and personal cxpenence: a. The ti
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i~I"
142 ExpoJitwn
catch a ilighr baek to sehoo1. When mey were near Exit
13-A 011 the Ncw Jersey Tumpike, more man a hundredounce
and-a-halfjars of Dickinson's Pure FanL)' Sweet Orange Mar
malade fdl fram the sky, shattering the windshield of me car
but not hurting anyone scrioualy. The jelles apparently fell
fram a transcontinental airliner, but no one knows jusr how.
"Ir, a puzzlement trying to find out how ir happened," an
airJine spokesman raId rhe Times. If every single morning, or
even twiee a monm, you opened me paper to find an account
of grocery items falJing onto passing Volkswagcns, Mrs. Wo!f's
travail would nor be so arresting. But marmalade-marma
lade, usually marvellously inert, 311 inmate of its jar uncil you
choose otherwise and reaeh tor a knife. Bere it is, rhough, in
me exir lane of rhe New Jersey Turnpike, an orange bolt !Tom
me blue. Ir is hard ro imagine a more meaningless story; yet
and mis is rruly sad-it made us think twice as hard as al1y
[ood riot in Santo Domingo.
Cornment "AlI news is bad news," you bclieve, .and rcadng the daily
newspaper seems ro support that bclief The Nev Ywker shows how somcthing unexpected or stmnge in the news forces a reacrionmakes you think twice about what you have read. Without exampIes you would have at best a vague idea of whar The N eJV Yorker is saying. What is bad news to one reader is not bad news to a.!lother. The essay would therefore fail as exposition. It would also tail as a persuasivc piece of writing. To hold the interest and gan the assenr of rcaders, the essay must have the sensc of truth. To gain that sense~ rcaders must look dosely at ther own world and experience. The more intercsting and vital the exarnples, the more reaclers wiU begin to think about their world.
Questions for Study and Discussion L The New Yorker reUs us thar "there is something reassunng about
the newspaper because it is ill of bad news--the same bad news
Bad News 143
eaeh moming." How does the first paragraph iilustrate ths thesis idea?
2. How does paragraph 2 illustrate the same idea' 3. Had The N eJV Yorker wished to build to the thesi, statement
instead of introducing it eady, how m1ght d1e cssay be reorganized?
4. Do you agrec that "it is hard to imagine a more meaningle8s story" than that of the arborne marmalade? In general, do you find the examplcs effective in the twO paragraphs?
Vocabulary Study 1. Words are often chosen tor their connotations or associations.
Tbe cOl1notation may be positive or pleasing, or it may be negative or unpleasant. The word may also caH a picmre ro mind. What are the connotation8 of the italic:l.ed word,? a. ''watchdog-of-the democratic process" b. "high-altimdc bombing to soften up the resistance c. "thugs on the F tran" d. "only because it is somed1ing freakish'v e. "an inmate of its jar"
2. What synonyms, or words having approximately the same meaning, might substintte for these words and the phrase? What is gained or lost in meaning through the substitution?
Suggestions for Writing 1. Describe your own tee1ings in reading the front page of a
newspaper on a particular day. Gve detals of what you found on the page, and use them to lead nto an observation of your own.
2. DisaISS your agreement Or dsagreemenr with the statement that "psychologically there is something reassurng about the newspaper becau.,e it is full of bad news. . . . " Provide your own examples from a recent issue.
3. !ilustrate and diseuss sorne of your reasom for reading a ncwspapero Lead into a central idea or thesis suggested by these illustrations and reasons.
