‘The nature of news is likely to distort people’s view of the world.’ Illustration: Sam Morris
Prof. Sam Lehman-Wilzig – For the Media, Good News is No (or Bad) News
Imagine opening your favorite newspaper (Times of Israel?) and catching this leading headline: “9.5 million Israelis yesterday enjoyed their uneventful day.” Not only would you scratch your head in puzzlement, but most probably would not bother continuing to read the item. After all, as the saying goes: “no news is good news,” so who wants to read, hear, or view “no news”?
It turns out that lots of people want to receive “good news.”
But if that’s so, then why are an increasing number of potential news consumers avoiding the news altogether? The answer: precisely because the media today serve an almost exclusive diet of bad news – and that gets them too depressed. This was recently reported from a multi-country, international survey (Israel was not included) (https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2022-06/Digital_News-Report_2022.pdf): “the proportion of news consumers who say they avoid news, often or sometimes, has increased sharply across countries. This type of selective avoidance has doubled in both Brazil (54%) and the UK (46%) over the last five years, with many respondents saying news has a negative effect on their mood.” Even worse for the future, “the longstanding criticism of the depressing or overwhelming nature of news persists among young people. For instance, in the UK, two-thirds (64%) of news avoiders under 35 say the news brings down their mood.”
The question that needs to be asked: is good news really “no news?” The answer should be clear: certainly not. Of course, just like “bad news” it all depends on the nature of the “good news.” In both cases, if it’s sensationalist or offers mere exotic, human interest (“man attacks shark to save his child”) then that’s not very useful, especially in large doses. However, there is lots of important good news out there that should be covered, and not just in the back pages (or screen bottom). For example, I am willing to bet that few of you were apprised of what is easily the most important world news of the week – and probably of the year: American scientists have for the first time ever managed to produce more energy from a fusion reaction than the energy it had to expend in bringing about the fusion (https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-scientists-announce-major-breakthrough-in-fusion-energy/). If that sounds “esoteric,” think again. This means that in the future, when all the other technological kinks are worked out (clearly doable, but it will take time), the world will finally have virtually unlimited energy (hydrogen is hugely abundant: water, etc.) without any pollution whatsoever!
This is obviously not simply an economic or ecological issue. Think of the Middle East: what happens to regional geopolitics when the Arab oil producing countries no longer have something to sell? What happens to the price of Israel’s large natural gas deposits? True, this is not a problem of “tomorrow”; but energy policy being decided today has to take into account the energy situation in years to come. If indeed fusion energy comes onstream in (let’s say) twenty years, then Israel should be selling as much it can in the intervening period before the price crashes (i.e., good news can bring bad news in its wake…).
So why do our news providers continue to produce almost only negative news?
To a large extent “we” (the news consumers) are at fault. Our natural tendency, driven by evolution, is to be more interested in possible danger than in surrounding benefits. Way back when, if you heard soft noises in the forest and thought that it was berries dropping down – well, that’s a nice lunch; but if it turns out that the sound was the patter of a tiger’s movement, then you’re lunch! So too, modern “tigers” are to be feared far more than some good “berries” are to be treasured – and the media, with their ears to consumer wants, are all too ready to provide that steady drumbeat of “danger around every corner.” So naturally, we have gravitated (news-wise) to bad news for self-preservation.
However, the contemporary situation constitutes a novum in world history – very different from any other prior period in human affairs. Even twenty years ago, most news consumers would get their daily news from a couple of sources (perhaps one newspaper and the evening news broadcast). Today we are all inundated (many are even overwhelmed) by a flood of news on a minute-to-minute basis, from every direction: social networks, news aggregators (e.g., Google News; Facebook); email newsletters, blog reports, and still quite a lot of “legacy media” (TV, radio, newspapers). Such overload leads to avoidance, mainly because a steady drumbeat of bad news can be really depressing.
What to do? Recently, a new solution was introduced by a not so well-known news site, Pink News, that offers its online readers an option to see only “uplifting” stories. The new feature enables users to choose to see only positive stories in their latest feed. That’s not necessarily a permanent choice but rather an opportunity to take a break from negative news when readers feel they need it.
Mainstream news sources don’t have to go that far; but given this new “news psychology” situation – again, worldwide – it behooves them to start thinking about the important positive news that occurs on a daily basis, hardly reported these days. Among other things, this entails journalists and editors making a “mental switch”: good news is not no news! (As an aside, IsraelSeen.com is one of the few Israel-news providers that consistently offers positive news about Israeli society and its accomplishments.)
Certainly, if any country could use such a change in news reporting it’s Israel – not only because it gets far too much negative press (even domestically), but because it has a huge amount of good news that potentially could (and should) be reported. For media that worry about declining audiences, that could provide even them with really good news.
