Journalists rejoice about tragedy. It sounds bad, I know. But I don’t blame them for it. The world didn’t get worse — it’s the news coverage that got much better through the years of that crazy 20th century, moving faster in this first decade of the 21st.And there’s a morbid feeling of excitement when something bad happens that gets journalists high (but professionally, it’s all professional). I’m not accusing journalists of mercilessness, nor do I think they’re cold-blooded people (well, not all of them). But then again, I pity them. Their living depends on the vicious craft of looking for tragedies, finding out what’s wrong and displaying that for the people daily. They take pride on their professorial speech as if such service would make society better, warning us of how evil mankind is and how unsafe the world in which we live is. That’s how they garner a legion of readers or viewers ready to drop their jaws and lose their hopes.I remember a story from a friend in Brazil who worked as an intern in one of the country’s greatest newspapers, Folha de Sao Paulo. He marveled at the “routine” inside a big newsroom, excited to have a hint of a journalists’ life. Then it was Sept. 11, 2001. Madness took over the newsroom and everyone inside the building. That was major news as never before — it would profit through weeks, months and years.That’s when my friend realized something was wrong. The frenzy he was witnessing turned his stomach. I bet he saw some journalists smiling that afternoon.Here, in Brazil and everywhere, earthquakes, attacks, hunger, big and small tragic events justify the journalists’ lives and make them shine.There’s another point to this sad truth that I’m not sure if journalists/reporters don’t realize or just ignore: Their dramatic will to broadcast and write about mistakes and mishaps doesn’t make the world better — quite the contrary.I don’t know who sponsored the absurd idea that a constant stream of information would make people more educated or more aware of what to do to grow as a society. That’s clearly not what the daily vomit of “news” is achieving.How can you fight violence by showing violence? When does the insistent show of terror and drama helps us feel safe?I know, of course, that we need to be informed. We grew to be connected and to consider reality and facts as guides to our actions. And life is not always made of flowers and butterflies.Tragedies happen, and we struggle to deal with them every day of our lives. Reflecting on facts and events is necessary — being informed is essential. But I believe we have unfortunately passed that point. The omnipresent and powerful media are impressing our perception with the fault notion that life is something else — maybe it is.Reality forges reality. There’s a subtle blend of actuality and literature with which we intuitively identify ourselves in the stories told everyday, by  journalists of all kinds. And I can assure you this is not “privilege” of the American media. There’s a modus operandi in journalism everywhere that shapes the news to its best cinematographic aspect.And we buy the tickets to the show at the price of that strange feeling that what is happening in the news becomes our own helpelss lives.As we remain like spectators of today’s showrnalism, emancipation lies far away.May we someday be able to make our own news, rejoicing on truth rather than the crude weakness of our self-pity.Marcelo Vieira is jazz cello graduate student from Brazil. Follow him on twitter @TDR_mvieira.
 
 
 
—-Conatct Marcelo Vieira at [email protected]