{"id":229009,"date":"2026-10-28T12:41:03","date_gmt":"2026-10-28T12:41:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/i-stopped-reading-bad-news-for-48-hours-heres-what-happened-positive-news\/"},"modified":"2026-10-28T12:41:03","modified_gmt":"2026-10-28T12:41:03","slug":"i-stopped-reading-bad-news-for-48-hours-heres-what-happened-positive-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/i-stopped-reading-bad-news-for-48-hours-heres-what-happened-positive-news\/","title":{"rendered":"I stopped reading bad news for 48 hours. Here\u2019s what happened – Positive News"},"content":{"rendered":"

What changes when you swap the daily doomscroll for journalism that asks not just what\u2019s wrong, but what\u2019s working? Oliver Balch finds out
What changes when you swap the daily doomscroll for journalism that asks not just what\u2019s wrong, but what\u2019s working? Oliver Balch finds out
I thought two days without bad news would be easy.
\u201c48 hours,\u201d my editor said. \u201cNo problem- or crisis-focused news. Only solutions-focused or constructive journalism.\u201d
\u201cSure,\u201d I said. Sign me up.
After all, as assignments go, this didn\u2019t sound too taxing. I don\u2019t have a TV, I\u2019m not on TikTok, I rarely go on YouTube and I ditched X long ago. At least the avoiding-the-bad-news-bit should be straightforward.
Wrong.
It turns out I consume far more negativity than I realised.
I choose a weekend for my detox. My logic is simple: less breaking news, less time on my various devices, more time with my head in other, more diverting, pursuits.
\"\"<\/a>
It starts well. I feel surprisingly relieved not to be listening to the radio as soon as I wake up. It\u2019s even a bit exhilarating, like I\u2019m breaking some kind of rule. Not waiting for the headline pips, not listening to the professional bickering: it\u2019s also freeing in a way. The silence allows me to take a breath, think about the day ahead, figure out my own mood before the news decides it for me.
Then, after an hour or two, I find myself growing anxious.
The world is unfolding without me.
An itch to reach for the news apps on my phone grows. I resist. (Honestly.) This is ridiculous, I tell myself. Donald Trump doesn\u2019t care whether I\u2019m abreast of his latest Truth Social aberration. I\u2019m not going to make any difference to the Middle East situation by knowing every sub-point of the latest peace plan.
Still, I want to know.
On Monday, after the experiment, I put this to An Nguyen, a visiting professor at Bournemouth University\u2019s Media School and a specialist in digital journalism. He explains that humans have what he describes as an evolutionary \u201cawareness instinct\u201d: a drive to know about potential threats around us. Once, that might have meant spotting a sabre-toothed tiger approaching our cave. Today, it might mean worrying about rogue AI wiping out humanity.
Perhaps, as a news junkie, that explains my anxiety at being shut off from the world around me. But I\u2019m not entirely convinced. AI is scary, but it\u2019s no tiger at the door \u2013 at least, not yet. For me, constant news checking is partly distraction, a way of escaping the everyday, and partly titillation: the irresistible pleasure of eavesdropping on the world\u2019s latest drama.
‘I started with a healthy dose of What Went Right, straight from Positive News’
Nguyen has another point, though, which I find more convincing \u2013 and more reassuring. To be active citizens, he argues, we need to know about the problems around us.
But that leaves me with a question. I follow the news. I know about record temperatures, inequality spikes and social care crises. But then what?
His answer is to get some constructive news into my life.
Fortunately, this tallies with my editor\u2019s instructions.
My first port of call is, naturally, Positive News. I load up the website and click on this week\u2019s edition of the What Went Right<\/a> roundup. Half an hour later, I\u2019m feeling perky.
This isn\u2019t simply a diet of cheery stories. The section\u2019s bite-sized articles lead me to reports about an EU proposal to ban social media for under-13s, the elimination of dog-transmitted rabies in Chile, a life-extending drug for people with breast cancer in the UK and a fun reward scheme encouraging people in Singapore to read books.
Then my eye is caught by a longer article about the so-called NEETs<\/a> problem: young people not in education, employment or training. This is where I start to understand the difference between \u2018good news\u2019 and constructive journalism.
The article doesn\u2019t pretend the problem has disappeared. Nor does it simply catalogue despair or blame young people. Instead, it asks a different question: what is being done about it, and what appears to be working?
What changed was the question I found myself asking. Instead of:\u00a0\u2018How bad is this?\u2019 I was increasingly asking:\u00a0\u2018What are people doing about it?\u2019 \u2018What can we learn?\u2019
So I read about one-to-one support programmes, charities running confidence-building sessions and a government grant covering young people\u2019s salaries for six months.
The problem remains. But now I have something else: a sense of what people are trying, and what we might learn from it.
Over the weekend, as I go looking for more solutions-focused journalism, three things surprise me.
First, it\u2019s surprisingly difficult to find genuinely constructive news.
There\u2019s plenty of material that amounts to paid-for PR fluff, which leaves me feeling cheated. And then there\u2019s serious journalism that explores a solution but spends so much time caveating it that I come away slightly deflated. Perhaps that\u2019s an inevitable consequence of journalism taking evidence seriously. But after a while, I find myself craving a story that simply lets me see an idea working.
Second, human interest matters.
More than once, I find myself getting, well, a bit bored. This makes me feel both guilty and confused. These are interesting, potentially world-changing solutions. What\u2019s not to like?
But I realise it isn\u2019t the solution itself that\u2019s making me swipe left. It\u2019s the dry or technical way in which it is sometimes presented. Lots of earnest problem-solving, not enough people-centred storytelling.
Instead of simply: \u2018How bad is this?\u2019 I was increasingly asking: \u2018What are people doing about it?\u2019 \u2018What can we learn?\u2019
The BBC podcast People Fixing the World<\/a> gets this balance right. Its stories put people at the centre: French companies opening their offices to homeless people after hours; Basque students making low-cost baby incubators; an inventor creating a 999 app for people who can\u2019t speak.
It\u2019s not just that these stories make me feel good. I want to know what happens next.
And that brings me to the third surprise: the sheer variety of constructive journalism.
Once I start looking, there is an astonishing range of subjects. At times, it feels overwhelming. I catch myself thinking I have to consume all of it, as if I\u2019ve somehow discovered a new information backlog.
Gradually, though, I relax. Just as with conventional news, I let curiosity lead me.
That\u2019s how I end up reading the NEETs piece \u2013 particularly relevant as I have two sixth-form-aged children \u2013 and a Positive News article about attending a silent retreat. As someone whose wife repeatedly suggests I spend less time listening to speech radio through my headphones, this one hits home.
Another Positive News article about an oil executive<\/a> turned business-accountability campaigner leaves me encouraged for another reason: perhaps those of us in middle age really can change our spots.
So, after 48 hours, do I feel better?
Definitely.
But \u201cbetter\u201d isn\u2019t quite the point.
I haven\u2019t discovered that bad news is simply \u2018bad\u2019 and positive news is straightforwardly \u2018good\u2019. Nor do I want to live in an information bubble where difficult stories are kept at a safe distance. Some of the most useful journalism I encountered during the experiment was about serious, unresolved problems.
What changed was the question I found myself asking.
Instead of simply: \u2018How bad is this?\u2019
I was increasingly asking: \u2018What are people doing about it?\u2019 \u2018What can we learn?\u2019 \u2018And what might I do differently?\u2019
I\u2019ll still reach for the radio news in the morning. But perhaps I\u2019ll be a little more deliberate about what I reach for afterwards.
And, yes, I might even leave the meditation mat where I can see it.<\/span>
Images: Oliver Balch\u00a0<\/em>
Positive News reports on the people and ideas driving progress. We believe that giving attention to solutions helps them spread.<\/span>
Our journalism is independent and powered by our readers. There are no media moguls or shareholders extracting profits: your contribution funds our work to investigate what\u2019s working, understand why, and bring those stories to a wider audience.<\/span>
If you value a fuller picture of what\u2019s happening in the world, please become a Positive News supporter today.<\/span><\/span>
Support Positive News<\/strong><\/span><\/a>
Website: Atomic Smash<\/a>
In the new issue of Positive News magazine, we meet the people building for a future they may never see \u2013 from a seed vault in the Arctic that\u2019s intended to outlast us all, to a library that won\u2019t open for a century. Subscribe now to get your copy.
What Went Right is our weekly video podcast bringing you the good news that matters. Expect informed conversation, surprising developments and stories that might just shift your perspective on the state of the world.<\/p>\n

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What changes when you swap the daily doomscroll for journalism that asks not just what\u2019s wrong, but what\u2019s working? Oliver Balch finds outWhat changes when you swap the daily doomscroll for journalism that asks not just what\u2019s wrong, but what\u2019s working? Oliver Balch finds outI thought two days without bad news would be easy.\u201c48 hours,\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":229010,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-229009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229009"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229009\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/229010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}