Of the Bright Side

Today I was given the opportunity to contemplate the better ways of sharing bad news.

For example:
Don't start with a sad voice and the words, "I better tell you what happened."
Do start with, "Before I go further, everyone is okay."
This will leave the listener more time to actually hear the rest of what you're saying rather than trying to tick off the names of the people that might possibly have died within the past number of hours.

Don't follow the aforementioned "Don't" with, "Your sister is now homeless" and begin a long story about flames that cannot be easily heard through bad cell phone reception.
Do continue with, "There was a small house fire and because of the damage to the dining room they won't be able to stay in the house for a little while."
This will stop your audience from having to mentally do a checklist of all the things they might have at their disposal to donate to their poor sister who has clearly just lost everything she owns and with a baby on the way and will, instead, give them the chance to actually listen to those details about the fire - bad reception and all.

But then again, starting your news with the "don't" list does, in fact, make the recipient much more positive about what actually did happen.  Because when you've spent the past five minutes ranging in thoughts from the likelihood that a family member is gone to planning a benefit for the ones who lost everything in the great Black Friday Fire of 2010, suddenly realizing that the rental home they were going to be moving out of within the next couple of months anyway has some damage, while many of their belongings were saved before the electrical fire broke through the walls, really actually seems like great news.

I suppose perspective really is all in the presentation.