I read the Guardian newspaper online every morning: given my long career in print journalism, I feel guilt at not buying an actual newspaper, but that is a whole other story. The purpose of this piece is to explore the meaning of “news” and why we are drawn to bad news rather than good.
Recently, the first thing I have been reading about each day is the dreadful ongoing war in Gaza. Since the attack by Hamas on the Israeli kibbutz and music festival where 1,200 people were slaughtered, and the retribution Israel is wreaking on Palestine, I am absorbed by it all. I scan every picture and read every line of text, trying to imagine what it must be like to be in a war zone, constantly living in fear and dread, mourning the loss of friends and family members and basically trying to stay alive.
I cannot, of course, for, thankfully, I have never been in such a situation. I castigate myself for the fact that I am drawn, by some morbid fascination, to read all about it, recognising that I am attracted and repelled in equal measure by this and other bad news. I have often wondered why this is.
I discover there is something psychologists call Negative Bias. Various studies over the years have proved that humans have a tendency to pay more attention to bad things and overlook good things, probably as a result of evolution. In the distant past, focusing attention on bad, dangerous and negative threats in the world was important - it could mean the difference between life and death.
A study in 2019 looked into whether demand for negative information is a cross-national phenomenon. Examining people’s psychophysiological reactions to video news content in 17 countries, their results revealed that, globally, on average, humans are more aroused by and attentive to negative news.
Even in our daily lives, when, by and large, everything is going well, we have a tendency to focus on the one bad thing that might have happened to us that week. Research in 2009 discovered ample evidence to suggest that negative emotions last longer than positive ones, that we tend to spend more time thinking about negative events, and that we often reason about them more.
I seem to remember that, back in the 1990s, former BBC journalist and war correspondent, Martin Bell, tried, for a short time, to take a moral stand on the news and to focus on good news stories rather than bad. I applauded this move in principle, but it just never got any traction because, by and large, people are not really interested in good news.
I feel duty-bound to keep up with what is happening in the world and so I continue my diet of bad news stories every morning, however, some time ago, fed up with starting each day feeling depressed, I signed up for The Guardian’s “Weekly Good News Roundup”.
Every seven days, an email pops into my inbox with a selection of stories that all, in one way or another, offer feel-good factor. The breadth of the subjects is both surprising and edifying. Since July this year for example, the articles have contained stories as diverse as how a formerly immobile Parkinsons patient from France is now able to walk 6km after a spinal implant, to a piece about Love and Climate, the speed dating event bringing together environmentally-conscious young New Yorkers looking for love.
One story about animals that work for a living fascinated me. Ferrets are used to take cabling into spaces that would otherwise be impossible to reach, and rats, in Africa and south-east Asia, use their heightened sense of smell to work on clearing landmines and detecting positive tuberculosis samples. If the rat hovers over a TB sample for three seconds, the sputum is identified as potentially positive. In landmine clearance, the rats scratch on the ground when they find a mine; thankfully, there is no chance of them setting off the explosion as they are much too light to do so.
On 5th November I opened my Good News email to read the following:
“Good morning.
If you read one thing today, let it be this article by Phoebe Weston on Margaret Bradshaw, a 97-year-old botanist who is fighting to preserve the unique mix of plants that can be found in Teesdale, England. Weston spoke to Bradshaw about her seven decade-long career studying and protecting wildflowers. It is a wonderful story of perseverance and stewardship that we can all learn a lesson from”.
Indeed it is. At 97, Margaret Bradshaw is still horse riding and in 2021 undertook a 55 mile trek raising 10,000 for the Teesdale Special Flora Research and Conservation Trust to record rare plants and find people to continue her work in the future. The lesson for longevity is, she says to “Just keep going. Don’t sit down and just watch the telly” This redoubtable lady is a lesson to us all.
Often these articles come from a regular series that appears in The Guardian called “A new start after 60”. The people featured are many and varied, from the man in Norway who, in an aim to “find himself” kayaked 6,800 miles alone; a woman with MS who has become a powerlifter at 71 and can now deadlift 55KG; and the man who started going to see bands again at the ripe old age of 74 and now goes to a gig every night.
Two recent features about thriving shops warmed the cockles of my heart. The first concerned the success of convenience stores: contrary to predictions they would be forced out of business by the big supermarkets introducing smaller high street stores, they are, in fact, flourishing. Ranging from newsagents and franchises to independent greengrocers, there are now 49,388 convenience stores across the UK and that number has increased by almost 1,000 in the last 12 months.
The other story was about one particular street in Poole in Dorset. Until two years ago, Kingland Crescent was a street most people avoided. Empty and boarded-up shops with few passers-by made it a depressing place to be, and anyway, there was nothing to go there for. Then a scheme to revitalise languishing town centres came along. The landlord LGIM (Legal & General Investment Management) Real Assets launched an initiative to offer the shops free of rent and business rates for two years to local entrepreneurs. As a result, the row of ten shops now houses a mix of independent retailers including a fishmonger, a record shop, a cocktail bar, a coffee roasters and a houseplant specialist.
Legal & General also offers the new business owners mentoring sessions and legal advice as well as generous financial offers. They have determined to keep rents low for the new businesses now the two-year rent-free period has ended, and everyone is benefitting. The new-look Kingland Cresent is drawing more people into the town centre so other businesses are profiting too. Legal & General plans to use the same tactics to revitalise other high streets and shopping areas. Any ideas that can bring life back to our town centres have to welcomed by us all.
But I think my favourite has to be the piece about a hapless cygnet who somehow took a wrong turn and ended up waddling along one of the shopping streets in Bath in Somerset. A rather comical photograph that accompanied the piece showed shoppers stopping to stare and take pictures on their phones, while a constable and two police community support officers used a fluorescent vest to shepherd the seemingly unconcerned young swan back to the River Avon.
These articles are all gleaned from the daily newspaper, so I do come across some of them in my morning’s read, but it is so easy to miss them when they are sandwiched between all the “bigger” pieces of bad news. It is a real boon to have them picked out and compiled with three or four others to give me news that makes me smile or provides an uplifting start to the day. They are a timely reminder that good things do happen and that every day, almost everywhere, small kindnesses and incredible people are making the world a better place.
Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash
If any of what I’ve written about strikes a chord with you, I’d love to know. Leave a comment here and I shall reply
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Thanks Fiona, had you ever heard of negative bias? I was so relieved to learn that there's a scientific explanation for it and that we are not just all weird!!
I loved reading this Susy. I think I'd better sign up for the good news articles as well as with all the dreadful news every time you turn on the telly, it's so refreshing to know that great things are also happening in this crazy world we live in.