In today’s world, news is everywhere all the time. Perspective is important while processing all the information available to us. Piet Westerbeek, our General Manager of Sioux County Radio, offers his viewpoint on this issue and shares our broadcast philosophy.
Omnipresence, how’s that for a word? Being everywhere at all times is the definition. Some of you may think of God when I say that word as he is omnipresent. He is everywhere at all times. Human beings are creation and are not meant to be omnipresent, but it seems that we always strive to be. I am old enough to remember when CNN created the first all-news station that ran 24 hours a day. I was pretty young, but I remember the conversations that adults had and the interest that a 24-hour news cycle generated.
Up to 1980 when CNN went live, news was broadcast at certain times of the day. Often morning, noon, evening, and night. Your news was consumed in chunks, much of it was from the day previous and it was not always breaking news. Breaking news was saved for large events like the assignation of JFK, the space shuttle being destroyed, or the invasion of Iraq. Now a days news is beaming at us as fast as an alert can reach our phone. We are bombarded by news from all over the world during our waking hours and sometimes when we are trying to sleep. I don’t think that humans were meant for that kind of information overload.
You may find these statements funny coming from me as I am a trained journalist and a General Manager of a station group that provides news. I do love news, and I think it is very important to society, but as with most things I believe that news needs to be consumed in moderation. Too much news, especially bad or negative news stories, can lead to anxiety, to unease, and in some cases depression. Many in the mainstream media don’t seem to get that and all they care about is content, regardless if it is harmful to society or not. Negative news gets eyes and ears, and it is lucrative.
Community First Broadcasting, which Sioux County Radio is a part of understands these issues and wants you to hear the good in this world. Shows like Swap, The Daily Grind, Rog’s Corner, and different daypart programming try to inform you about all the positive things we have locally. Our stations spend very little time on national news as most of the time it is negative and is sometimes beyond our community’s control. Don’t get me wrong, national news is important, and we don’t want to stick our heads in the sand, but national news is everywhere and easy to consume 24 hours a day.
I recognize that the news our stations produce will not always be positive. It will include stories that are hard to hear and sad, but we try to bring you the facts with very little opinion attached. We know that our listeners are smart enough to formulate their own opinion and don’t need to be handed one. We hope that our programming can help offset much of the negative stories in this world and have you smile or walk away having learned something new about our great and local communities. We thank you all for the privilege to come into your homes and inform you about this great place where we all live. Let’s leave omnipresence to God. He can handle it all always.
