You've probably seen it in the comment sections of CNN and BBC News posts after a rough day of headlines.
"Why is the media always focused on the bad stuff that happens?" -or- "Why not report on [Insert good thing that happened somewhere] instead of something negative like this?"
These are fair questions to ask. The daily barrages of depressing stories of scandal, tragedy, and disaster that are constantly reported on can paint the world in drab colors.
But those are what colors the world is when you zoom-out.
Now that isn't meant to be a nihilistic statement trying to cheekily say "life is meaningless, we're only made to suffer, yada-yada-yada..." On an interpersonal level, the lens we see through on a day to day basis, life's usually pretty great. Especially for those of us fortunate enough to live in the United States, where we can eat strawberries in winter for Pete's sake.
Has science gone too far?
But at any scale larger than what we see from the ground, the average experience becomes grimmer. And while there are occasional feel-good stories of elementary schoolers raising money for charity or older families building neighborhood "Little Free Libraries" for people to donate their excess Gary Paulson novels to, focusing even half of a news day on these kinds of stories would be fabricating reality. Just in the last 24 hours of the time of this article's writing:
Over 20 US airstrikes happened in Yemen.
Michigan stopped subsidizing water bills for residents of Flint, MI.
A Milwaukee Vietnam veteran received a cease-and-desist letter from his senator, Ron Johnson, for trying to contact him regarding some of Johnson's policy.
We live in a far from perfect society, and when it comes to what's newsworthy, the bad outweighs the good by large margins. Personally, I'd rather have my ratio of positive-to-negative news be close to the rate at which they occur in reality, instead of trying to smokescreen myself and others into some reality that isn't. I think it shows the importance of recognizing the good that does happen in our lives and around us, to cherish the moments and connections that make us laugh, put smiles on our faces, and I guess for some people the moments they can't remember due to inebriation (Go Cougs).
And if this whole outlook on things doesn't seem right to you, do some searching. Look at matters and issues you deem important and see what you can do to make good news about them. Inform others, join a club or an organization, start a canned food drive, go pet cats for an hour every weekend. The world can always use more good.
