Is there more bad news now than ever before or is it that the rate of news and emphasis on bad news faster and greater than ever before? What's the reality with regard to bad news today?
Let's begin by traveling back some years to a time when there were less people, less technology, less knowledge about how the world works, and less information exchange. At that time, most people got the same news via radio, written reports, or word of mouth. In many ways, people in a community were receiving similar messaging and then dealing with that information together. Today, in contrast, there are countless sources of information and far more versions of truths and untruths spread. In some ways, we are closer together as a world community and further apart in our neighborhoods--this is a strange reality.
While there were less news sources and frequency long ago, was there also less incidence of bad news?
That answer is relative and depends on who you are and where you lived or live today. For example, if you lived long ago in a place mired in struggle, you likely faced a lot of bad news, but if you lived in a relatively peaceful, resource-full, productive community, you likely had a lot of good news. The same, in many ways, is true today--if you live amongst positive elements, life is probably fairly good, but if you live amongst struggle, life is likely not too good.
How you live and who you live amongst determined your quality of life to some degree in the past as well as today. Yet when we compare the past and present relative to bad news, I believe there are more pressing concerns or "bad news" today than in the past.
The fact that Earth is facing limitations of life's essential resources is the kind of bad news people in the past did not experience. When it came to clean air, clean water, and clean soil, that wasn't a big problem in the past, and it is a big problem today--a critical problem the world has to face as a community.
Also, while people throughout time have been on the move due to the need for safer, better, different lives, population increases and resource limitations have made migratory patterns more troubled today than in the past. My ancestors faced discrimination similar to immigrants and migrants today, but they also landed in a country with seemingly endless resources and opportunity. While the United States continues to enjoy a terrific collection of resources, lands, and opportunity--the reality is that we are far more interconnected with the greater world, and our worldwide common knowledge of what each country has and desires creates a situation where we have to work together to create happy, healthy lives for everyone, and that's going to take some awesome collaboration, problem solving, creativity, and planning.
Yet, we are a more educated people today, and that education, in many ways, has fostered greater peace and equity though we still have a long way to go in that regard.
As I consider bad news today, I believe there's more bad news overall today, and this bad news requires a mind shift for today's people no matter where we live or what we do. To deal with today's bad news, we all have to commit to the following acts:
- We must promote and support honest, positive, people-centered news share, and we must create laws and policies that work against greedy, dehumanizing, destructive propaganda that currently takes up too much space on news channels, political debate, positive energy, and opportunities for better living. We are allowing this dangerous, deadly propaganda to run wild and too many life-sucking, me-first, evil leaders the world over are utilizing this propaganda to feed their unhealthy, hateful, hurtful diets of harm and destruction.
- We have to work as a world community to find ways to create healthy, sustainable, people-centered, happy communities everywhere in the world. Too many people the world over live in places that do not offer humane, positive, peaceful places to live. Humans have the will and creativity to change this, but it's going to require tremendous collaboration and coordination amongst the best of the world's people.
- We have to find ways to sustain, discover, and create the healthy resources we need to stay alive. Those same greedy folks who use propaganda to promote their evil deeds are also misusing the world's resources for their own fame, gain, and pleasure. Again, the world's people have to come together and work out ways to sustain, discover, and create needed resources.
- As a people, we have to use our creative intelligence to rethink what it means to live a good life. Too many of us are stuck in outdated patterns and ways of living that do not promote good lives for all. We need to rethink and revise our life ways to improve the way everyone is able to live with health and happiness. As we consider this revision, we can begin by eliminating old myths that promote prejudice, hatred, injustice and inaction. We can also revise our habits related to food, water, waste, and the natural land around us in order to practice more Earth-friendly, sustainable ways of living.
- Together we must embrace a code of humane ethics that lead us as a people. In the past and still today in some places, religions, for the most part, promoted a code of ethical behavior, but we find today that many religions have become corrupted by errant forces and new knowledge has led us to question some religious practices and teachings. Also, recently Donald Trump modeled a substantial lack of ethical, humane behavior and many followed his lead creating a displays of openly bigoted, hateful, harmful behavior. We have to change that because to live well, we have to respect each other and work for the common good in ethical, humane ways.