I’m beginning to wonder if there is something seriously screwed up with the human mindset when it comes to what we call news. I don’t buy a newspaper, and I rarely watch the news on the TV – although I do recall a TV advert that implied that I was just putting my head in the proverbial ostrich hole for choosing to do this. That somehow by ignoring a lot of current affairs I was just in denial. But I tell you, it’s not through lack of trying on my behalf.

I accidentally caught the TV news a couple of days ago, and as I watched I remembered why I didn’t bother with it. The news consisted of people dying, people being murdered, people being abused, the government in turmoil, the strong suggestion of economical meltdown, etc etc. Not one piece of good news from anywhere in the world, not one! Why is that? Is good news not considered newsworthy? Are people more interested in hearing about pain than hearing about others’ successes? I began to wonder what would happen if all of the world’s media took the decision to give half of their time to our current stream of bad news, and also give an equal amount if time to successes, to people actually finding their lost children, to stories of hope. Would it change peoples’ way of looking at life? Or would they in fact crave more of the negative stuff? By watching this everyday does it somehow allow us to think, ‘well, at least my life isn’t as bad as theirs’. I do hope not.