The news you can use

My oldest son was born in 1983, the same year Canadian songbird Anne Murray topped the charts with a song called “A Little Good News.’’

Well, son Ed is about to graduate from college this year. So much has changed.

Except for the need for a “little good news.”

When I meet readers or speak to groups, the question comes up all the time: Isn't there any good news in the paper any more?

My response is that for every "bad" story you see in the newspaper there are thousands of "good" ones that never get told.

Here's a quick scan of the morning news over the past few days:

• Macon police investigating fatal hit-and-run accident


• Man robs Warner Robins bank


• Frost, high fuel prices, drough: Ga. farmers fear for crops


• Murders rise 22 percent in Atlanta in 2006, FBI says


• Police find abandoned baby in stolen van


• Two killed at party after fight erupts in shootings, stabbings


• Police arrest son in connection with father's death


• Cases of salmonella sickness linked to peanut butter top 600


• Woman arrested for setting fire to home with children inside


• CDC looking for 80 passengers, 27 crew from TB flights that led to federal quarantine

If you are wondering about that Anne Murray song, here are the lyrics as written by Charles Black, Rory Bourke, and Thomas Rocco. Although some of the current events have changed, the need for some good news has not.

I rolled out this morning

Kids had the mornin' news show on

Bryant Gumbel was talkin' 'bout the fighting in Lebanon

Some senator was squawkin' 'bout the bad economy

It's gonna get worse you see, we need a change in policy

There's a local paper rolled up in a rubber band

One more sad story's one more than I can stand

Just once how I'd like to see the headline say

"Not much to print today, can't find nothin' bad to say", because

Nobody robbed a liquor store on the lower part of town

Nobody OD'ed, nobody burned a single buildin' down

Nobody fired a shot in anger, nobody had to die in vain

We sure could use a little good news today

I'll come home this evenin'

I'll bet that the news will be the same

Somebody takes a hostage, somebody steals a plane

How I wanna hear the anchor man talk about a county fair

And how we cleaned up the air,

how everybody learned to care

Whoa, tell me

Nobody was assassinated in the whole Third World today

And in the streets of Ireland, all the children had to do was play

And everybody loves everybody in the good old USA

We sure could use a little good news today

Nobody robbed a liquor store on the lower part of town

Nobody OD'ed, nobody burned a single buildin' down

Nobody fired a shot in anger, nobody had to die in vain

We sure could use a little good news today