Dow Jones chairman Peter Kann has published some thoughts on OpinionJournal.com about some problems with the media he’d like to see fixed. Tim Graham highlighted one of the points that he found particularly interesting. Here’s one that struck me:

The exaggerated tendency toward pessimism. Just look back a few years over much of the media coverage of “American competitiveness.” All those news magazine covers on the coming “Japanese Century.” And along with it, all the pessimism about the ability of U.S. industry to compete globally. It was nonsense. Similarly, it’s one thing–and an appropriate one–for the press to probe particular instances of political corruption. It’s quite another thing to jump to the cynical conclusion that our political process, and all politicians, are corrupted–that “they all do it.” They don’t, and they aren’t. Skepticism and criticism are essential to the media’s role; reflexive pessimism is not.

I would say it’s less about pessimism and more about the kind of alarmist tone that moves newspapers and drives ratings up (see, in addition to Kann’s examples, global warming, missing children, stories about how your purse can kill you). But the criticism is still valid, and all of Kann’s points are worth reading and thinking about.