The Good News Girl
Casual The Good News Girl When I was a college twerp, surrounded by my college-twerp friends, we sat around like Gam-bino-family capos, deciding how to carve up the kingdom. They resolved to put...
...I needed to have something urgent and dramatic to relate to the folks...
...On her webcasts, she sits casually on the floor in front of a roaring fire, announcing inspirational stories from categories with kindergarten-teacher-like names: "Today we are dipping into the Love Bucket," or the "End of the Rainbow Bucket...
...Kagan was a CNN anchor before the suits decided to go in another direction since they already had a pretty face to attract male viewers (Anderson Cooper...
...Daryn does warn us that this isn't just happy news, it's "hopeful news...
...Rather, I was keenly aware that most news is bad news, and I enjoy bringing bad news to people...
...Me, I decided to go where the news was, or at least where it could be manufactured, and became a journalist...
...After enough of these stories, I was yearning for a quick pick-me-up: a sex scandal, a natural disaster, genocide, anything...
...She likes to say she had the "scents" knocked into her...
...That somebody is Daryn Kagan, who has started the eponymous good-news website, DarynKagan.com...
...But I was only six...
...No problem...
...Perhaps because of it, studies regularly show that in popularity contests, journalists' numbers hover around those of puppy poachers, al Qaeda cell leaders, and Republican congressmen...
...I just enjoyed the theatrics, the tension, the story arc...
...But it was only a matter of time before one of our own swam against the tide and struck a blow for decency...
...She didn't let her mild brain injury and fibromyalgia stop her from planting 10,000 lavender plants to start a line of aromatherapy and comfort products...
...She now strives to accentuate the positive, celebrating the triumph of the human and animal spirit...
...There's the 13-year-old who started the comic book series about Omega Boy and the evil Dr...
...A typical title for a story, such as one on a very special triath-lete: "No legs...
...But it's also a little depressing...
...But Kagan had had her fill of war, famine, and pestilence stories anyway...
...Then there's the wheelchair-bound trumpet player for the Louisville Cardinals marching band who was born without eyes...
...It's not that I thought the undeserved spanking she'd receive was hilarious, though of course it was...
...She herself proved that anything is possible when the comely news reader let the galootish Rush Limbaugh date her in public (Gross Bucket...
...If you really want to be featured on DarynKagan.com, it helps to have cancer, though any incapacitating disease or malady will do: cerebral palsy, juvenile diabetes, even urinary tract infections...
...And it did leave me hopeful: hopeful that I don't contract Lou Gehrig's disease and find myself stenciling bird-houses with my eyelashes for the sake of injured chimney swifts, and finally ending up as fodder on DarynKagan...
...Then I'd report back to our parents...
...Not because I thought a democracy flourishes only with a well-informed citizenry...
...When she took applications to see who the lucky winner would be, she got "tea-riffic responses...
...He's not to be outdone by the woman who was hit in the head by a roll of carpet falling off an overhead rack...
...Matt Labash...
...Her aim is to "show the world what's possible...
...Then there's the tale of a woman who was inspired by Oprah to show thanks for her good fortune by "paying it forward" and giving away her tea shop...
...They resolved to put their marketing majors to work in the captain-of-industry perches that were their birthrights, taking what was theirs as assistant popcorn-butter melters at the dollar theater, or salad-bar sneeze-guard cleaners down at Applebee's—at least until their screenplays sold...
...It makes me feel alive...
...Diabetes...
...This character deficiency is shared by a large segment of our profession...
...Sure, watching a man who had his skull crushed by doctors during childbirth paint with his nose is inspiring...
...As a tyke, I'd coax my toddler sister into throwing our dad's toiletries in the commode and flushing them, causing an overflow...
...You can read about "Henry the Amazing 3-legged Cat" (Kagan has a three-legged cat of her own, which she says captures chipmunks and her heart), or "Ozzie the Hero Dog," the Airedale terrier who kept his owner from getting hit by a car, though Ozzie wasn't so lucky...
...There are all kinds of feel-good stories on DarynKagan.com...
...Telling them we were running low on Capri Suns just didn't scratch that itch...
Vol. 12 • January 2007 • No. 17
