Is it my imagination or is there just nowhere to hide?

I am trying to remember if there was ever a time where things in the world seemed so bad, to provide a context for younger people that it will eventually get better. There have always been moments of madness, unthinkable tragedy and insanity running amok, but I can’t recall an era that approaches the peril we now live with every day.

People say it is the 24/7 news cycle and social media that are spreading the bad news so quickly that it only appears more than ever before. I don’t buy that, although I wonder why I can’t escape to my favorite sports website anymore without seeing more mayhem. ESPN is owned by Disney which also owns ABC, so its website has now become a little of everything – maybe to capture and keep more readers?

Four stories down from feel good sports headlines – and before Phil Michelson’s 63 at the British Open – came two articles on the President and a divided America. Pollster Nate Silver headlines ESPN’s FiveThirtyEight with articles about Donald Trump’s least-worst candidate for running mate and a profanity laced story on why the Hip Hop world is turning against  Trump. Was hip hop ever WITH the orange flip mop?

There are so many wonderful sports stories through which to escape, many of them coming from the ESPY Awards show, why even include the dump-truck massacre in NICE? I don’t know who is making decisions on these sports-news websites, but my guess is it’s the wrong move. Sports have always been what we turned to get away from the bad news. And today there is more bad news than ever.

If we want to weep, there are still enough heart-wrenching human interest sports stories like that of slain 15 year old athlete Zaevion Dobson, told brilliantly by a first-person surrogate. Why can’t we leave the rest to CNN and all the hard-core news channels and sites?

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