[June 17, 2020] Charles Groenhuijsen is a journalist and author whose been covering world events for over 40 years.1 He sees journalism as a mirror; people look in this mirror, and they’re supposed to see the world as it is. They don’t. They don’t know the world because journalism shows, with rare exceptions, the negative side of life. Good news is shunted to the side as trivial, irrelevant, and old-fashioned.
“I’m an optimist because I look at facts. Think about the decline in extreme poverty. It’s unbelievable what we’ve experienced in the last 25 years. Over 100,000 people every day come out of poverty.”
Good news is no news. That’s the message journalists want to give us.
“Think about child mortality. Infant deaths have halved since 1990. Think about average life expectancy. In 1960, the average life-span was 52 years. Today, it’s 72 years. Think average health in the world that has improved tremendously. That has improved tremendously. And people don’t know it.”
We should steer our reporting towards a more positive, constructive way to look at things.
“Sometimes, I compare journalism with raising children. We raise children in a way that brings out the positive sights in them, things they do well. Imagine us as parents always saying to children what they’re doing wrong. If that’s the only message we have for our children, they’re going to end up as miserable people and negative people and probably angry people. But this is exactly the way we treat – as journalists – the world.”
Charles gives a clear message that journalists emphasize the terrible things in the world. He would go in the opposite direction and amplify the good, without forgetting the bad. No one ignores the challenges we humans face. From natural disasters, inequality, war, and poverty, there is still an answer, and that is to make progress, small step by step, overcoming them.
“Because we say the world is horrible. Oh, and tomorrow will be even worse … with refugees and immigrants, with crime, with everything. And the consequence of this negative attitude is that people look at the world in a very negative way.”
Progress is underway in so many fields that it is unprecedented. Education, fundamental human rights, for women and children, and people simply don’t realize it. Journalism could make the world a better place but has they have consciously chosen not to help. Why? Journalists do not consider it to be their basic task to make the world a better place.
“People should realize that being pessimistic about the world is a choice. But optimism is a choice as well. It gives more energy, and eventually, with that kind of energy, we can make a better world.”
Charles Groenhuijsen is someone we should pay closer attention. He speaks with few words but with great insight.
————–
This journalist is great. He helps improve the reputation of journalism which is in the gutter at this time.
I couldn’t agree more with you. Our social media and journalism in general has been crawling along the gutter for a long time now. No surprise to any of us that the “profession” has a confidence rating lower than an ambulance-chasing lawyer.
The underlying premise of all journalism is that the world is evil and they are our saviors. Like Jesus Christ they have no sins and no behavior can be considered bad in their effort to root out evil. This is their moral position and no logic will ever change that view. Facts are irrelevent and when we begin to realize this, only then can changes to their distorted view start to change.
Gen. Satterfield, appreciate you introducing me (and us) to Mr. Groenhuijsen. He certainly has a great point. I’ve linked to his website and plan on letting my friends know about it. But he has gone much further than simply criticizing journalism today and has offered a number of solutions. One of them is ethics training; long overdue.
Ethics? What ethics? Journalists need no ethics. They are morally superior to us “deplorables.” /sarc off !!!!!!
I don’t believe that a news reporter would know what the meaning of ethics or integrity means. Are any of us surprised. I know, this is a strawman argument but it still hits home.
Pow, hit it out of the park Georgie. LOL, you do make me laugh occassionally. Keep ’em up.
Oh, BTW, here is his Facebook page. Now I don’t recommend the Marxist Facebook app but I put it here only as testament to Mr. G. https://www.facebook.com/charles.groenhuijsen
A number of YouTube videos with Mr. G in them:
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Charles+Groenhuijsen.
Note that not all are in English.
Thanks Eric, watched a few and found them really good. No surprise to me that he is not well known. Mr. Groenhuijsen goes against the ideologically restrictive, anti-American narrative of Western journalism. BTW, journalism is not a “profession” because it lacks any self-regulating mechanism. If I were a journalist today, I would quit out of disgust for those who work in it.
Well said, Eric. You are very insightful with your analysis. Journalism today is not even as good as the Yellow Journalism of our past. I challenge any reporter or news person to dispute that with facts. What? Can’t do it. Ha Ha
Kenny, you are so right. The main thing to get from it is that they are anti-American. But why? The reason is simple, they are Marxists which are anti-capitalist. Wealth must be destroyed IOT bring about the utopia.
Right, and the 100+ million dead from Marxism in the 20th century can testify how that worked out.
Eric, thanks for the link. I recommend watching a few to get a better idea of where Mr. Groenhuijsen is coming from.
Enjoyed the article and quotes.
Thank you Gen. Satterfield for highlighting Charles Groenhuijsen. Never heard of him before and maybe that’s because he’s a journalist that has integrity and a smart idea.
Hi Army Captain, welcome back. Good to see you are back to Gen. Satterfield’s blog. We missed your comments because they confirm much of what is written here by both Gen.S and others in the forum. Keep helping America and the free world. Your service is greatly appreciated.