Why is the news overwhelmingly bad? It’s a question that those reporting current affairs have been asked since the first town crier cleared his throat hundreds of years ago. The answer is banal: ordinary people leading quiet lives do not often make for thrilling stories.
War, politics, crime, terrorism, destitution: all bring out extremes in human nature that make for compelling reading, stir up our compassion, anger or horror – all emotions that make us feel alive and engaged.
But it would be wrong to assume that the only things worthy of record are examples of man’s inhumanity to man. While people kill each other in Syria, traffic children into Europe, beat slaves on ships in the South China Sea or just shoot each other dead in America, many, many more people are engaged in trying to address, fix or circumvent the big problems of our age.
The scientists trying to eradicate diseases such as guinea worm; the volunteers helping refugees; the food innovators finding new ways to feed the world; the visionaries who reject conventional wisdom and come up with new better ways of doing old things. Peacemakers. Carers. Social entrepreneurs.
Journalists who have ventured to oppose the news agenda have generally been derided as naively falling for PR guff and spin, or else missing the story altogether. There is middle ground. It’s not “good news” but constructive journalism, focused on solutions and answers, but not necessarily endorsing them.
Illuminatingly, we asked readers earlier this year what they thought we were missing and what they’d like more of. Significant numbers replied that we were seeing the glass half empty all the time.
One reader called for more
‘Good news’ stories about what is being done to counteract problems. This sort of material is used only as filler – exceptional, quirky stories to take the edge off the important stuff and lighten it up a little. This is an unhelpful balance. Why is ‘bad’ news seen as the ‘real’ news?
Another said:
When there’s good news, please don’t ignore it! It may be in shorter supply in the next 5 years.
Readers were specific too:
Hydroponics will drive food prices and availability in a world where most of soil will be rendered useless.
Prosthetic technology (mostly limbs, but amazingly eyes too) is making huge leaps forward.
Journalism does not only reflect the society that we live in. It shapes it too. If we publish too many pictures of size zero models, girls want to be thin. When we publish every detail of a US shooting, it cannot help but inform the copycat.
Our hope is that the opposite is also true: if we publish more examples of people trying to do inspiring things, perhaps it can inspire us all to make our world a little better.
Please share your suggestions of stories, trends, innovations and people that you’d like to see included in this series in the form below.
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