And Now… The Good News

Did you watch the video above?

Did it make you feel good?

Did you come away feeling positive about the world?

This is also news. News that people enjoy watching.

In a recent study the the Reuters Institute at The University of Oxford, it was found that an astonishing 47% of Americans now actively avoid engaging with the news in any format. The numbers are even higher for other countries such as the UK and Brazil.

The reason is that people find the news distressing, depressing and anxiety inducing. It is, after all, an almost endless litany of disasters, wars, fires, shooting, crime and vindictive politicians. No wonder no one wants to watch.

This alienation from the news has disastrous effects on a functioning democracy, where people vote based on their perception of and education about their nation and the world.

Since the days of Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst, the basic rule of journalism was, ‘if it bleeds, it leads’. That was because murder, rape, arson, crime and anything else scary, say shark attacks or terrorists, sold newspapers. And the objective of owning a newspaper was to maximize eyeballs to sell to advertisers.

But in a world inundated with a never-ending stream of ‘content’, from 24-hour news channels to soon to be dominant live streaming, more and more people are saying ‘enough’ and turning away.

This does no one any good.

Perhaps it is time to abandon the ‘if it bleeds it leads’ concept. Maybe people have seen too many bleeding bodies.

Is the story about news? I think it is. OK, it is not a random shooting, a car wreck, a disaster, a shark attack. It doesn’t bleed. It does, however, exude a very good and positive feeling for the viewer, and maybe that is what people are seeking now. News does not have to be doom and gloom all the time.

The number one book on the NY Times Bestseller List is Hillbilly Elegy. I don’t want to get into politics here, but both the book and the movie are incredibly uplifting and positive. A story of overcoming all kinds of hardship to lead to success.

TV journalism could do the same, perhaps not all the time, but can we have say 50% good news?