I saw a comment this morning lamenting the imbalance of positive and negative news content that we are given.
There are scientific studies (Negativity drives online news consumption) that show this type of content generates higher engagement. So whether news organisations are aware of their editorial direction or not, the clicks that drive the content they publish push them into this space.
I am not suggesting we stop discussing the important serious issues of the day.
Though, I will be actively trying to share more positive articles with you all going forward and I encourage you to join me.
Though hopefully it can avoid the “orphan crushing machine” effect. That was a problem r/UpliftingNews on Reddit suffered from a lot. So many posts that were meant to be uplifting but were completely dystopian. Most commonly Americans posting stuff like “kid saves money to pay for classmate’s cancer treatment” and the rest of the world staring in horror that someone has to pay for a kid’s cancer treatment in the first place.