Negative news has a greater impact on people than positive: https://assets.csom.umn.edu/assets/71516.pdf
Media sites know this, and use it to drive engagement:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-023-01538-4
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/social-media-facebook-twitter-politics-b1870628.html
And so, negative headlines are getting worse: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0276367
But negative news is addictive and psychologically damaging: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/why-we-worry/202009/the-psychological-impact-negative-news
So it’s important to try and stay positive:
https://www.goodgoodgood.co/articles/benefits-of-good-news
If you want a break from the constant negativity, here are some sites that report specifically on positive news:
Remember, realistic optimism is important and, unlike what some might have you believe, is not the same as blissful ignorance or ‘burying your head in the sand’: https://www.learning-mind.com/realistic-optimism-blind-positivity/
https://www.centreforoptimism.com/realisticoptimism
And doesn’t mean you must stay uninformed on current affairs: https://www.goodgoodgood.co/articles/how-to-stop-doom-scrolling
https://goodable.co/blog/tips-for-balancing-positive-and-negative-news/
This is awesome and could be its own post!
Thanks! 👍
When you realize all the news outlets are owned by billionaires it kind of makes sense
They really are, I went through a lot of them to find out who owns them. I maybe stopped too early, but it was getting depressing. Reuters? Owned by a billionaire Canadian family. NYT? A huge portion controlled by the same family since the 1800’s even though it’s publicly traded. Our news needs to be sanitized and brought back to old timey journalism.
“Old timey journalism” was usually when someone with a political axe to grind started a local newspaper to try and counter the other guy who had started a newspaper. That’s when you get editorialism and a particular slant on your news.
You probably want something like large public-funded-but-relatively-neutral news agencies, who have the resources, time, and budget to allow proper investigative journalism to take it’s full course, and are large enough that they don’t have to pander to the politicians of the day or big business.
So we’re talking at this point about BBC, ABC (Australia), Al-Jazeera, Deutsche Welle, and other similar organisations.
None are without bias - it’s very difficult to actually be bias-free, most will have a home country bias, for example. But they’re better than the billionaire’s media circus.
You’re absolutely correct, we need a form of the fairness doctrine back and a break up of all media conglomerates.
yeah, people think that feeding into our reactionary side for views is something new, but television has been corrupting us since long before the internet.
i remember these stickers in the 90’s… they used to be everywhere, especially in the subcultures like the punk/rave/hippie/skater scene:
“KILL YOUR TV”
i’m glad someone was looking out for me. killing that thing definitely made me a better person.
Generally agree, but the “news” isn’t meant to offer solutions, or fix anything.
They are only supposed to highlight or reveal facts and situations.
In some cases, reporting on a topic can result in solutions, as in the case of previously unknown corruption, but that’s an edge case
This is why I listen to podcasts
Pretty sure most social constructs and all sounds morbid or toxic if you put them like this…
Not so - let’s pretend Anthropology 101 is a person.
It . . . it sounds like a teacher.
Okay, let’s pretend a grassroots advocacy group is a person
It sounds like someone really concerned about [homelessness, food insecurity, etc.]
Only news is so untouchable and overwhelmingly depressive.
I find callouts like this ironic considering the all feed for Lemmy is exactly the same thing minus the ads.
At least there are memes. Star Trek, D&D and Linux memes, but still. Also the angry pundentry is in the comments.
Listen here, FOOL, there’s also fossilesque single handedly keeping sciencememes alive.
I use my own curated feed most of the time. Not saying there aren’t other things, but the all feed is easily 75% doom scroll usually.
There’s plenty of news out there that is rational and factual. It’s boring however and you refuse to go find it. So keep only taking in the major mainstream outlets and complaining about it.
Please, let me know where? I am a terrible googler and I need the help. Please help me find the rational, factual news.
This question is direct to op. Of course, if you have suggestions, okay, but I am specifically interested in which ones op meant.
I absolutely agree with the “news” person until half way.
Reporting what has happened isn’t toxic it’s news. That’s their entire job.
Getting stuck on repeat about the same thing, might be toxic though. Since it’s no longer news.
Another thing is the “experts on both sides”. This is a poison of the mind, to believe that right and left wing politics are both equally valid and correct. Most of the time the science agrees with the left.