Watching Bad News, Hoping for Good

My sister was irked when she turned on the TV Thursday morning and saw Regis and Kelly laughing “as if nothing had happened.”

Not long after that, a woman called a radio talk show and mildly scolded the host for underplaying the “emotional” aspects of his morning subject in favor of a more “intellectual” discussion of why bad things happen in the world.

They were talking about what we’re all talking about: the apocalypse in New Orleans delivered by Hurricane Katrina.

But how much to talk about it? How much TV to watch on it?

Endlessly? Sporadically? On the half-hour? During commercial breaks on other programs?

Or, why not ignore Katrina completely on the grounds that we know what happened and that it’s just too depressing to dwell on it?

What I wouldn’t give now for a panel of psychologists to address the question. Wouldn’t you love to know what our varying levels of interest say about us?

If you watch all the time, does that mean you’re more compassionate? Or just more morbid?

If you can’t take any more coverage, do you live your life in denial?

If you’re not interested at all and are upset that Katrina is taking time away from other news, are you an insensitive brute?

Call your personal shrink to find the answer.

Surely some of the nonstop viewers are entranced by pictures they’ve never seen in the U.S. and by the near-incredible reality of 20,000 people trying to function for days inside the Superdome. I can’t imagine anyone I know handling a situation like that without coming unglued.

But why isn’t everyone entranced by that?

I’m sure some of our fellow citizens are baffled that so many others can watch hour after hour of the same video footage. How many different views do you need of how New Orleans looks like submerged? It looks the same at 7 a.m. as it does at 7 p.m. You’ve seen one rooftop rescue, you’ve seen them all.

In our newsroom, we’ve had TVs on all week long, and at times I’ve camped in front of one of them. But I haven’t had the urge to watch round-the-clock news on the subject. Was I wrong to go to the Angels game Wednesday night instead of watching CNN?

For my tastes, the riveting element is how these suddenly cursed New Orleans residents are going to carve out lives in the weeks ahead. In a sense, then, I’ve seen all I need to see.

In our land of plenty, it’s hard to imagine how people felt Monday morning when they realized they couldn’t get to the grocery store, had no electricity in their houses and had no way to replenish food or medical supplies.

But if it’s too much for some of us to watch, others can’t get enough.

Why? Why do some of us subject ourselves to the weeklong sadness of other people’s suffering? Why maintain a TV vigil since the levees broke in New Orleans?

Here’s my theory: While watching the misery index rising by the hour, we get glummer and glummer. Working ourselves into that kind of a funk can’t be good for our psyches.

Unless ...

Unless there’s a subconscious method to that seemingly conscious madness. Maybe we willingly overdose on the despair because we sense that something redemptive will happen.

In the midst of such tragedy, surely (our subconscious says) something good will emerge. Perhaps even something beyond good -- maybe some miraculous tale of human kindness.

And, if it happens, we don’t want to miss it because when it comes, our psyches will be rewarded far beyond what we’ve come to expect from normal everyday life.

As low as the lows are now, imagine how high the highs could be.

That must be why we watch.

We aren’t obsessing because we enjoy people’s suffering.

We’re obsessing because we’re waiting on the miracle.

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. He can be reached at (714) 966-7821 or at dana.parsons@latimes.com. An archive of his recent columns is at www.latimes.com/parsons.