Taking the good with the bad
By Staff
Kim West, Franklin County Times
I have often heard journalists criticized for only writing negative stories while ignoring good deeds. The war in Iraq has provided many stories that haven't made our country proud such as the Abu Gharib scandal and the misconduct by some of our soldiers. But for every so-called bad story, there is also a good one. I have read stories about soldiers rebuilding schools and providing extra medical attention to Iraqi children and how women in Afghanistan and Iraq are getting a taste of the freedom that we enjoy in the United States.
I have found that there is also a lot of good news to tell in Franklin County to go along with the stories about crimes, accidents and misconduct by public officials that we are obligated to report as fairly as possible.
In my short time at this paper, I have had the opportunity to interview many local people and write stories about everything from baseball games to pageants.
Maybe I'm not a "real reporter" because I prefer to snap photos of kids playing T-ball than take pictures of a wreck.
And maybe it's human nature to be more interested in reading about a house fire or who escaped from the local jail than to read about local kids winning scholarships or who won the BBQ competition at the Phil Campbell hoedown. But I feel fortunate to work in a place that seems to have more good stories than bad ones.
One of my co-workers and I spent several hours one night this week delivering papers in an area neither one of us knew much about, and in the middle of this endeavor we ran into some car trouble. The first incident involved our van being chained to a John Deere tractor and dragged from the edge of a deep ravine on Highway 91. A very kind passerby in a pickup truck stopped and asked to help. We immediately accepted since we still had to finish the paper route, and he immediately returned with his tractor and restored our van to the road where it belonged. The next incident occurred within the hour when we realized we had a flat tire on Clement Road near Highway 48. Despite our limited mechanical prowess, we managed to jack the van up enough to remove the flat but not enough to put in the spare. A nearby homeowner noticed our lack of progress and called a family member.
He showed up within 20 minutes and had us ready to hit the dusty road again in less time than it takes to get a combo meal from McDonald's.
So I want to thank Jimmy Seay and Blake Montgomery for being the kind of people that make me believe there's more good than bad in this county.
