You’ve surely seen headlines like these:
“Man talks down teenaged mugger, takes him to meal.”
“Anonymous benefactor pays off stranger’s astronomical medical bill.”
or this one from Saturday: “Chicago Woman Gets 30 Hotel Rooms for Homeless People During Severe Cold Snap.“
Every few weeks, one of these stories will float around social media as “feel good” news. Maybe I’m just a dour skeptical person, but when I read these headlines, all I see is:
“Desperate teen attempts mugging, settles for meal instead.”
“Health insurance system so broken, we’re dependent on rich strangers.”
“One of America’s largest cities lacks basic shelter for its homeless citizens.”
All these stories share a common theme: when the system failed, an individual stepped in to offer a little immediate support. I can understand why this narrative resonates so much with the American public. Most of us have grown up without much faith in existing systems (thanks, Watergate), while our movies and other media reveal an excitement around heroic individuals. Still, I’m not really comfortable calling these stories of individual do-gooders “good news” since they required massive system failures in order to happen. We almost need a new category. How about “Systems Are Dysfunctional, but Generous Locals Act Defiantly” or “SAD/GLAD” news?
Hallmarks of SAD/GLAD include a person noticing an injustice and acting immediately to remedy it for an individual or small group of people. This is the chief flaw of SAD/GLAD news: even though an individual’s pain has been alleviated, the system remains broken. There are still more homeless people freezing to death. There are still sick people facing higher bills than they can handle due to a broken system. There are still hungry teens mugging people. SAD/GLAD stories celebrate individuals standing up to these problems, but the effects of their generosity (however helpful in the moment) are still isolated and temporary. I wonder if there are ways to report these stories so people will read them and seek real systematic change, which would have a greater positive effect in the long term. Think of the possibilities:
What if the story about a Chicago woman purchasing hotel rooms motivates Chicagoans to push for a ballot initiative which would mandate additional emergency shelters for the winter months?
What if the story of a sick individual’s plight helps motivate widespread health insurance reform to make exorbitant medical bills a thing of the past?
What if the story of a man buying a meal for his teenaged mugger motivates donors to give above and beyond to non-profits working to alleviate local hunger?
If a SAD/GLAD story just makes us feel good, it doesn’t actually accomplish much, but if these stories can start to motivate real systematic change, by all means, hit the “share” button.