What sells?

Recently I had a conversation with our local newspaper editor about an observation I made regarding the Olympics.

My observation was that the ratings for the Olympics were quite high and that the Olympics are what could be considered good news.  We get to watch people at the pinnacle of performance and learn about the work that got them to this point.  I argued that people do like good news.

The editor's response was one of facts.  The paper had recently done two very different stories as headlines.  The first was a good news story about Governor Nixon visiting a local advanced manufacturing plant to given an award.  The second was a story exposing some potential conflicts of interest in the city government of a neighboring town.  Guess which sold more papers?

There are educators doing great things in classrooms across this country every day.  These supermen and superwomen are getting blasted daily in the national media by those who seek to privatize public education.  We're not going to improve education as an institution by throwing rocks at the people in it.  Our teachers have earned better treatment.