The news is a call to action

By Bunny McBride

Some years ago I heard an anecdote about the Albanian Christian missionary known as Mother Teresa and a Chicago woman who greatly admired her charitable work among the destitute in India. Touched by media accounts about the remarkable nun, the American decided to turn her admiration into action. She saved her money, flew to Calcutta, and found her way to the city slums and the woman who had established the Missionaries of Charity sisterhood. Meeting Mother Teresa, she announced that she had been so inspired by her work that she had flown halfway around the world to serve as a volunteer. Embracing the woman, Mother Teresa whispered in her ear, "My dear, are there no problems in Chicago that need your help?"

I empathize with that woman. I picture her poring over the fat Sunday paper, listening to the morning news on her car radio en route to work, and watching late-night television newscasts while folding laundry. Over the years she has found countless disturbing reports about famines, epidemics, government corruption, ethnic conflicts, homeless families, and abused or orphaned children. Such stories are so numerous and far ranging that in the fact of them she often feels helpless, hopeless. In the depths, she comes across a story about Mother Teresa. It is a story of goodness and possibility, and she grabs hold of it as if it were the story and the answer to the world's woes.

In fact, there are many such stories, some chronicled, most not, and many right in our own backyard. All of them are answers to the dark side of the news. However, it is obvious that more answers are needed since so much of what we encounter in the media is negative. While some claim that the preponderance of bad news exists simply because "that's what sells," the fact is that alarming events occur every day all around the globe. And the question is, what can we, as individuals, do to counter them? What do we do with the news once we've read, watched, or listened to it?

About the author

Bunny McBride is an anthropologist, author, and Native American rights activist. Her latest book is Women of the Dawn (University of Nebraska Press, 1999).

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