This is not a smoking area;
This is no smoking area;
This is a no smoking area;
This is a no-smoking area;
This is a non-smoking area (which merits a grin).

They’re all out there. So who’s politely afraid of no, not and non?

“No good” would be “nothing good or useful about it”.

The “TV no good..” I would certainly have used “TV not good” for two reasons. The “Not bad” cries for a balancing “not good” in the first sentence, almost like matching tenses or plural usage. The other reason is that it makes a simple comparison and gives a simple result – that TV isn’t going to improve children’s IQ. The article doesn’t make a blanket statement that there is nothing on TV that is beneficial to a child.

(IMO, the short story segments and especially the bright, loud, intentionally disruptive commercial ads destroy concentration and are likely drivers for ADHD. On the other hand, the child is exposed to a more universal speaking dialect, music, and concepts that would otherwise be missing from many homes. Not to mention the way TV can be used to entertain the kid and give parents a break. Of course, that reduces the home skills that parents teach kids, reduces time kids are with their parents, learning skills, values, beliefs, appropriate behavior and patience.)

“Losing a Contest Doesn’t Mean Your Writing is Poor”

Personally, I think it would have been clearer and removed the “Huh?” factor, but we’d have missed out on the interesting discussion.