Turning the news on its head

On the first day of his glad-tidings experiment, morning drive host Kevin Ebi took a little dig at negative natterers in the press like me.

"Starting today, KJR-FM reports 'Only the Good News,' " Ebi announced last week on the Seattle classic-rock radio station. "You can get bad news anywhere."

Then he was off in a blizzard of sunshine. Orphans in Africa were getting new clothes. Free dental work was available in Bothell.

Local people were finding jobs, getting awards, beating odds.

"Washington state's employment rate is 93 percent, better than the national average," Ebi announced on Friday's newscast.

He does that every day — flips the jobless rate on its head to instead report the percentage of people still working.

"It's a far bigger number," he points out.

Yeah, maybe for now it is.

Oops, there I go, channeling Eeyore. I listened in to KJR-FM's hop into happy news last week because I've been hearing it from readers that the media is a downer. We're no longer reporting on the economic downturn. We're perpetuating it.

All the doom and gloom only breeds more, the critique goes. It's as if the press is pleased at the country's misfortune, rooting for all to end up sitting around campfires eating from tin cans and singing Woody Guthrie.

There's truth to that. I think it's only that we're a megaphone for any big story.

We're not always mopey. We got giddy as anyone for the dot-com and housing booms. It's just that this story is no less than the total collapse of the U.S. finance system (oops, Eeyore again).

Enter Ebi. He's a former Seattle Times reporter who says he's not in denial that planes and stock markets crash. People need a break.

"I certainly understand that society needs all the news," he said. "We're doing this because the bad news is everywhere else. We're here when they've had enough."

That also motivated Justin Carder, who runs a blog about the Capitol Hill neighborhood (capitolhillseattle.com). Last year he noticed another Web site had a Google map of every police call in the Central Area. It was a valuable service, but seeing all the drug busts, burglaries and beatings — graphically shown daily with blood-red push pins smothering the city — "it freaked me out," Carder says.

"It was like we're living in a Cormac McCarthy novel. You got the sense you'd better not go outside. Unless heavily armed."

So Carder fought back with a "Good News Map." His push pins are a soothing blue. Click on them and up pops a Seattle you don't hear about in the bleeding, leading minutes of the nightly news.

"At 16th Ave. E. & E. Harrison, a vulnerable-looking woman, shaking like a leaf, said she was nervous and would I please pray for her. I did!"

"Somebody filled the huge pothole with sand, which meant I didn't wreck when I hit it at night on my bicycle."

"Gave baby a free flower."

Carder's map stalled, though. People stopped posting sunny stories last summer. He's not sure why. Maybe it wasn't newsy enough?

Ebi says just because something's positive doesn't mean it isn't news. Like when he reported there are 4,000 job openings listed for Seattle on Monster.com.

True, 10 times that many people were pink-slipped in one day. But life goes on. That's what Ebi's trying to say every morning on KJR-FM. We go on.

Maybe that is now news. If so, I'm not sure it's good. When what used to go without saying becomes the new shocking, then things must be topsy-turvy indeed.

Danny Westneat's column appears Wednesday and Sunday. Reach him at 206-464-2086 or dwestneat@seattletimes.com.