Good News Bad News: The Media’s Affect on the National Mood
December 29, 2023
Most polls agree: Americans are in a grumpy mood.
What would you expect? We’re fed a daily media diet of war, corruption, political uncertainty, pandemic, higher prices, fear of recession, replacement by migrants or robots, crime, congressional dysfunction. In other words, almost universally headlined bad news.
How different would the national mood be if good news had equal time and space?
Good news? What news is there that merits as much attention as the Really Important Stories that grab those headlines?
Answer: A lot. Life changing news about personal and world health, jobs, resources, efforts to tame the climate, and more.
Yes, Virginia, There Really Is Good News
5 Examples of Under-Reported Good News From 2023
1. A New Class of Drugs to Combat Weight Loss
As one example of an under-reported story, the magazine Science each year lists what it deems the year’s greatest scientific “breakthroughs.” The magazine’s breakthrough of 2023 is a new class of drugs that’s actually achieving significant weight loss results without serious side effects, while also showing promise for treating heart, stroke and other medical conditions.
After years of disappointing false starts, this certainly clears the hurdle of “very big deal.” In other words, good news.
2. AI Decoder Opens Doors for Stroke Victims and Others to Communicate
The year also saw development of an artificial intelligence decoder that can translate brain activity into a continuous stream of text that allows a person’s thought to be read non-invasively. Essentially, a mind reader and the promise of a whole new world of opportunity for stroke victims and others unable to speak.
3. Software that Can Identify Breast Cancer 30x Faster
To fight the scourge of breast cancer, new software is being deployed that can identify breast cancer from mammograms 30 times faster than human doctors.
4. The Development of “Micro-Lungs”
For defense against Covid, lung cancer and other pulmonary diseases, science has developed “micro-lungs” that mimic these diseases and will speed research on how to respond to them.
5. Alternative Energy
In 2023 there was a huge surge of interest in hydrogen as the energy source of the future. Venture funds invested tens of millions of dollars in R&D. Pilot projects proliferated. An unpublished U.S. Geological Survey study suggests Earth may hold 1 trillion tons of hydrogen—enough to satisfy growing demand for hydrogen as a fuel and fertilizer ingredient for thousands of years.
Scientists also found a way to capture atmospheric carbon dioxide and convert it to baking soda to be stored in the sea. In turn, the ocean can act as an "infinite sink" with an immense capacity for accessible CO2 storage lasting hundreds to thousands of years.
The Long List of Under-Reported News Grows
The long list of under-reported news includes embedded streets in Detroit that charge electric cars that drive on them, crushed dandelions as a substitute for rubber tires on planes and cars that shed polluting plastic particles, a wood-based material that’s 60% stronger, 80% lighter, less expensive and far more sustainable than construction steel.
Early in December, the FDA announced approval of a new treatment for sickle cell, made possible by genetic editing. This news did get some media attention. It’s worthy of more than a one-day story since the same process that will improve and save lives for those with sickle cell disease will likely work for various types of cancerous blood diseases, blindness, MS, and a range of other conditions caused by genetic mutations.
An Equal Distribution of Media Resources
Imagine if the same resources the media deploys to cover political minutia were to be seriously applied to understanding and reporting on the amazing new developments emerging from the myriad of places that don’t fit under a right-center-left umbrella.
Let’s say TV newscasts and print news desks were to consider topics like science, education and health as equals, not afterthoughts, to politics, crime, and even sports. What if there were as many reporters covering labor as well as business? Would our mood be as sour? Would the answer to the ubiquitous poll question “Do you think the country is on the right or wrong track?” be as negative?
In mid-19th century, the invention of the telegraph meant that news no longer depended on ship arrivals from Europe and the Pony Express. The era’s sage, Henry David Thoreau observed in his classic tome, Walden:
“We are eager to tunnel under the Atlantic and bring the Old World some weeks nearer to the new, but perchance the first news that will leak through into the broad, flapping American ear will be that Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough.”
Thoreau’s response was to stop reading the news. Our 21st century’s media response should be to feature the equivalent of the cure to whooping cough and so much more.
As I say on the cover of my latest novel, The Moment of Menace, the future can be glorious. Developments that are getting us there deserve equal time.
Happy 2024 everyone. Cheer up!
What would you expect? We’re fed a daily media diet of war, corruption, political uncertainty, pandemic, higher prices, fear of recession, replacement by migrants or robots, crime, congressional dysfunction. In other words, almost universally headlined bad news.
How different would the national mood be if good news had equal time and space?
Good news? What news is there that merits as much attention as the Really Important Stories that grab those headlines?
Answer: A lot. Life changing news about personal and world health, jobs, resources, efforts to tame the climate, and more.
Yes, Virginia, There Really Is Good News
5 Examples of Under-Reported Good News From 2023
1. A New Class of Drugs to Combat Weight Loss
As one example of an under-reported story, the magazine Science each year lists what it deems the year’s greatest scientific “breakthroughs.” The magazine’s breakthrough of 2023 is a new class of drugs that’s actually achieving significant weight loss results without serious side effects, while also showing promise for treating heart, stroke and other medical conditions.
After years of disappointing false starts, this certainly clears the hurdle of “very big deal.” In other words, good news.
2. AI Decoder Opens Doors for Stroke Victims and Others to Communicate
The year also saw development of an artificial intelligence decoder that can translate brain activity into a continuous stream of text that allows a person’s thought to be read non-invasively. Essentially, a mind reader and the promise of a whole new world of opportunity for stroke victims and others unable to speak.
3. Software that Can Identify Breast Cancer 30x Faster
To fight the scourge of breast cancer, new software is being deployed that can identify breast cancer from mammograms 30 times faster than human doctors.
4. The Development of “Micro-Lungs”
For defense against Covid, lung cancer and other pulmonary diseases, science has developed “micro-lungs” that mimic these diseases and will speed research on how to respond to them.
5. Alternative Energy
In 2023 there was a huge surge of interest in hydrogen as the energy source of the future. Venture funds invested tens of millions of dollars in R&D. Pilot projects proliferated. An unpublished U.S. Geological Survey study suggests Earth may hold 1 trillion tons of hydrogen—enough to satisfy growing demand for hydrogen as a fuel and fertilizer ingredient for thousands of years.
Scientists also found a way to capture atmospheric carbon dioxide and convert it to baking soda to be stored in the sea. In turn, the ocean can act as an "infinite sink" with an immense capacity for accessible CO2 storage lasting hundreds to thousands of years.
The Long List of Under-Reported News Grows
The long list of under-reported news includes embedded streets in Detroit that charge electric cars that drive on them, crushed dandelions as a substitute for rubber tires on planes and cars that shed polluting plastic particles, a wood-based material that’s 60% stronger, 80% lighter, less expensive and far more sustainable than construction steel.
Early in December, the FDA announced approval of a new treatment for sickle cell, made possible by genetic editing. This news did get some media attention. It’s worthy of more than a one-day story since the same process that will improve and save lives for those with sickle cell disease will likely work for various types of cancerous blood diseases, blindness, MS, and a range of other conditions caused by genetic mutations.
An Equal Distribution of Media Resources
Imagine if the same resources the media deploys to cover political minutia were to be seriously applied to understanding and reporting on the amazing new developments emerging from the myriad of places that don’t fit under a right-center-left umbrella.
Let’s say TV newscasts and print news desks were to consider topics like science, education and health as equals, not afterthoughts, to politics, crime, and even sports. What if there were as many reporters covering labor as well as business? Would our mood be as sour? Would the answer to the ubiquitous poll question “Do you think the country is on the right or wrong track?” be as negative?
In mid-19th century, the invention of the telegraph meant that news no longer depended on ship arrivals from Europe and the Pony Express. The era’s sage, Henry David Thoreau observed in his classic tome, Walden:
“We are eager to tunnel under the Atlantic and bring the Old World some weeks nearer to the new, but perchance the first news that will leak through into the broad, flapping American ear will be that Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough.”
Thoreau’s response was to stop reading the news. Our 21st century’s media response should be to feature the equivalent of the cure to whooping cough and so much more.
As I say on the cover of my latest novel, The Moment of Menace, the future can be glorious. Developments that are getting us there deserve equal time.
Happy 2024 everyone. Cheer up!
Joe Rothstein is a political strategist and media producer who worked in more than 200 campaigns for political office and political causes. He also has served as editor of the Anchorage Daily News and as an adjunct professor at George Washington University's Graduate School of Political Management. He has a master's degree in journalism from UCLA. Mr. Rothstein is the author of award-winning political thrillers, The Latina President and the Conspiracy to Destroy Her, The Salvation Project, and The Moment of Menace. For more information, please visit his website at https://www.joerothstein.net/.
