Good websites for REAL optimistic news?

[Shipyard Locked]

Does anyone know any good websites for getting REAL, SUBSTANTIAL optimistic news to counter the doom 'n' gloom on every other outlet?

The problem with a lot of the 'positive news' sites I've found so far is that they mostly stack piddling fluffy human-interest stories against terrifying matters of import.

You know, "Local girl saves 10 sea turtles" is somehow supposed to give me hope in the face of "China, Russia, Iran preparing to kill you with AI right after the latest bank collapse".

I'm losing functionality in my life and I'm desperately trying to regain a sliver of hope for the world. I need intelligent reasons to believe in the future.

 

[Stumpydave]

What you need to remember is good news doesn't sell. The one attempt I can think of to do what you suggest led to 'Hello' magazine - a publication containing little more than celebrity puff and fawning interviews.

Better to stick to Reuters - at least then your just getting the facts, not opinion on why we're all doomed.

 

[Bunch]

I wonder if the good news doesn't sell is true anymore. Maybe if you have to satisfy the whole marketplace good news doesn't sell. But there has to be a niche that would like it.

 

[Dyrnwyn]

I find that local news is better for this sort of thing -- while it's not all positive, at least it's more balanced. This may depend on the local media scene where you live, though.

 

[JAMUMU]

I wonder if the good news doesn't sell is true anymore. Maybe if you have to satisfy the whole marketplace good news doesn't sell. But there has to be a niche that would like it.

I knew a couple of news media guys back around the turn of the century, pretty high up too. And they both spoke of dark times ahead as news media was being re-tooled and re-vamped for the doomish "rolling news" era. I'm not going to say anything political, though the changes we've seen are definitely more structural and political than aesthetic. One of them went into sports media and the other took a massive pay-off and retired early.

EDIT: I'd echo that sources like Reuters and the Associated Press are the places to go for "just the facts, ma'am" style news.

 

[Bunch]

I knew a couple of news media guys back around the turn of the century, pretty high up too. And they both spoke of dark times ahead as news media was being re-tooled and re-vamped for the doomish "rolling news" era. I'm not going to say anything political, though the changes we've seen are definitely more structural and political than aesthetic. One of them went into sports media and the other took a massive pay-off and retired early.

EDIT: I'd echo that sources like Reuters and the Associated Press are the places to go for "just the facts, ma'am" style news.

My brother works in newspapers. He thinks it all went downhill when they switched to the 24 hr news cycle.

 

[Endless Flight]

I always say the 6:00 news is 29 minutes of bad news and one minute of good news at the end.

 

[Shipyard Locked]

I'd echo that sources like Reuters and the Associated Press are the places to go for "just the facts, ma'am" style news.

I don't just want facts.

I want serious reporters and experts telling me there's probably light at the end of the tunnel. That I should still bother saving money for retirement instead of blowing my life away on tearful hedonism in what often feels like the final handful of years (months? Weeks?) before the big one.

My personal life is fine, just give me a carefully thought-out explanation for why I should have faith in the perpetuity of the world and I'll be golden.

 

[Stumpydave]

I think you'll be better of not reading or engaging with "The News". I don't think what you want exists because what you want doesn't sell/generate outrage clicks.

 

[Shipyard Locked]

I think you'll be better of not reading or engaging with "The News".

I try, but it's kind of hard to exist in society these days without getting hit with stray blasts of news. I'm in New York for Christ's sake, there's news screens and paper headlines lying all over the place, not to mention overheard conversations, social media intrusions or friends mentioning things casually.

The last one is an actual example, I was keeping up a good blockade, but my brother declared on discord that China plans to be ready for an invasion of Taiwan by 2027 (at which point I assume we all get incinerated). Why am I supposed to do, ask people around me to muzzle themselves on certain topics? That'll go down well.

Metaphorically, I need a vaccine, not just isolation.

I don't think what you want exists because what you want doesn't sell/generate outrage clicks.

Which is baffling in a way. People pay good money to stupefy themselves with anti-anxiety meds. Thus, it seems like there's an open niche for an aggregator willing to collect expert testimonials that say, "It's going to be alright, our leaders are dumb but not that dumb, you'll very likely live to see another Christmas, you should still make long term plans."

I feel loads better whenever I find a story like that.

 

[JAMUMU]

My brother works in newspapers. He thinks it all went downhill when they switched to the 24 hr news cycle.

Yeah that and internet disruptors wrecking established paid-for media models and the spread of click-baiting to absolutely every facet of existence. I think there's also been a real dumbing down of content; if you look at any news article from the old BBC website, say from the early-mid 2000s, each reads like a wikipedia entry compared to the bare bones we get today. What used to be "standard article length for adults" is now a "long read", and sometimes "long reads" are just getting started when they finish.

As for what Shipyard Locked is asking for, I'm just not sure it exists. I'm not sure if it can exist right now. Yesterday morning there was a science expert presenter lady (Hannah Fry) on the Sunday Brunch light entertainment show my housemate watches every week. She's got a new show coming out, and she was very excited about some of the tech she'd been exposed to making this programme. Her excitement? That while we can't escape the impending eco-environmental collapse, there's tech in the early stages of development that means we might be able to start repairing the environment and rebuilding civilisation. Maybe by the end of this, or the middle of next, century! But maybe futurology is where the optimism is?

The only way I can deal with the media is by heavily limiting my exposure, with occasional relapses. It can be catastrophic for my mental health, like putting all the pieces together in your head the way Lovecraft warned us not to do. Yet also sometimes these things need to be stared in the face and acknowledged and then let go off, in the Buddhist way. But it's hard. Probably one of the hardest parts of being a relatively smart, relatively well informed, more sensitive than normal person existing in this particular historical moment.

 

[Raleel]

honestly, there are few sources of ONLY good news. I've been having a similar issue. What I've been finding is that the stuff I consume and I have a choice about what to consume must be tuned against the news barrage. So, I don't subscribe to r/politics or similar things. I purged my twitter feed of almost every political person, save my local congressman (who is a flaming asshat), got off facebook, use instagram and twitter as my major social media, am am draconian about who I allow on. You go political, i remove you, end of story. I also find getting rid of people who low effort like/retweet only is a good metric for removal. You aren't contributing anything new, go away.

I make sure to fill my space with special interest stuff. Most of the world i don't *need* to know. I can be disconnected a bit. I have a bit of work that I need to follow world stuff for, but not a lot, so I focus on a few places. So, EVs, rpgs, mountain biking, world building, a few video games i like a lot, wholesome memes (yes, there are many of these), r/makemesmile (though occasionally you get reminded that someone's good action is actually compensating for a horrible state of affairs), r/happycryingdads, and so on.

I listen to a few podcasts in the car. One is a bit bad news, but really well delivered, so I take it a bit, but also let it go freely. I listen to one on icelandic sagas. I also listen to more music than anything else.

Occasionally stuff will crop up and I will have missed it, but it's pretty rare, and I haven't carried the weight of everything else.

 

[Bunch]

I use Facebook but back in 2015-6 when everyone was just going nuts I purged all political folks. Now my Facebook stream is woodworking, RPGs, game conventions. And even those groups I only join if they have a no politics rule. I find the only place I can get civil engagement is in no politics places. And I'm talking basic civility like not calling something someone's done shitty. No politics seems to be acting as a filter for people who've mastered basic ability to stop spewing and thinking about how something will be received by someone not like you. It's wierd.

 

[Agemegos]

Hans Rosling said that the news is good at telling you the worst things that happened to anyone yesterday, but very bad at telling you the wonderful things that happen to everyone over fifty years. So maybe try a few things that take a longer view. Rosling’s own talks at TED (find them on Youtube or at TED.com); Steven Pinker’s The Better Angels of Our Nature; Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel.

 

[thebigh]

I always say the 6:00 news is 29 minutes of bad news and one minute of good news at the end.

The news is a TV show where a guy in a suit and tie says, "Good evening" and then spends half an hour telling you why it isn't.

 

[Burgonet]

We’re kicking off a period of history where ‘the news’ is not going to be that positive.
Frankly, you’re just better off not knowing. Or reading reports with summarised facts, graphs, charts and predictions.
In other words, summaries written by analysts.

I’m not going to plug Peter Zeihan, even though I was reading him back when I got Stratfor newsletters twenty years ago.
Everyone else is though! And to be honest, he’s pretty on the money with his predictions.
’
But something in that vein, relating to industries or trends you are interested in, might be your best bet.

 

[Brock Savage]

There are subreddits dedicated to wholesome and uplifting news. https://www.reddit.com/r/UpliftingNews/

Edit: Personally I find you get what you pay for when it comes to news. Both NYT and WSJ provide quality, nuanced coverage on the topics that interest me. Free news on the Internet often turns out to be sensationalistic click bait with little depth.

 

[Bunch]

I try, but it's kind of hard to exist in society these days without getting hit with stray blasts of news. I'm in New York for Christ's sake, there's news screens and paper headlines lying all over the place, not to mention overheard conversations, social media intrusions or friends mentioning things casually.

The last one is an actual example, I was keeping up a good blockade, but my brother declared on discord that China plans to be ready for an invasion of Taiwan by 2027 (at which point I assume we all get incinerated). Why am I supposed to do, ask people around me to muzzle themselves on certain topics? That'll go down well.

Metaphorically, I need a vaccine, not just isolation.



Which is baffling in a way. People pay good money to stupefy themselves with anti-anxiety meds. Thus, it seems like there's an open niche for an aggregator willing to collect expert testimonials that say, "It's going to be alright, our leaders are dumb but not that dumb, you'll very likely live to see another Christmas, you should still make long term plans."

I feel loads better whenever I find a story like that.

The thing is for the most part good news is the default situation. We have issues and people are working on it. Most of the time there is nothing new to report. Brexit was the last time I saw what I would consider actual reporting of what good news looks like most of the time. Two parties talking and 80% of the time nothing happens but trust is hopefully being built. No comment on if that was what was happening in Brexit. But that's what good news usually looks like. Quietly people are working every day on a problem and most days nothing new is there to report. Modern news spends all friggen day finding something horrible that happened in hopes you will pay to find out what and why.

There are subreddits dedicated to wholesome and uplifting news. https://www.reddit.com/r/UpliftingNews/

Edit: Personally I find you get what you pay for when it comes to news. Both NYT and WSJ provide quality, nuanced coverage on the topics that interest me. Free news on the Internet often turns out to be sensationalistic click bait with little depth.

Just don't ever go to the comments section. Anything good you thought about people reading the NYT will be gone 30 seconds into the comments.

 

[Brock Savage]

@ Shipyard Locked There are resources out there for curating uplifting news. For example, I stay on top of noteworthy developments in renewable resources, climate technology, and cat rescues for my daily hit of dopamine. I am lazy and use Reddit which is alright but for fuck's sake don't get mired in the comments.

Just don't ever go to the comments section. Anything good you thought about people reading the NYT will be gone 30 seconds into the comments.

I think that's part and parcel of being a savvy media consumer along with the ability to separate the editorial bias of a newspaper from their fact-based reporting.

The thing is for the most part good news is the default situation.

I was going to say that most good news is not novel or noteworthy enough to be newsworthy but you said it much better than I.

 

[Vile Traveller]

There are no good news on the level that could counter "the climate will collapse within your lifetime", so I go out of my way to avoid news.

 

[rumble]

Nextdoor.com?

 

[Raleel]

Nextdoor.com?

lol, that makes facebook look like a pristine mountain lake.

 

[rumble]

Yes, but sometimes it's pleasantly diverting to watch the local piranha rather than the national or global ones.

 

[Bunch]

Nextdoor.Com. Where the real neighborhood gossip gets spread.

 

[Kobayashi]

Probably not what you're looking for but whenever things seem too bleak, I re-read Carl Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World. In general, listening or reading to what I consider to be people way smarter than me is always uplifting. I'm not talking about dumbass motivational videos but simply people talking about their work, about science, etc. Scientists, historians, screenwriters, whatever. We don't need a good news network, we have books

 

[Telok]

I get pretty good mileage out of the NASA app. Which reminds me, need to check for an ESA app.

 

[Toadmaster]

There are some who will at least highlight why the doom and gloom of much news is overblown. Don't know if that is good newsy enough for your needs.
The lack of proper journalism vs "some unknown source says click baity thing" which is now passed off as journalism is pretty depressing.

 

[E-Rocker]

For the most part, I stopped watching/reading the news around 2005 and I really haven't missed it.

 

[chuckdee]

lol, that makes facebook look like a pristine mountain lake.

It's started out pretty good... but went downhill fast. It proves that the whole thing about people not being assholes if their real names were known and they were in their own community talking is patently false.

As far as the OP, there's https://news.boredpanda.com/, though not sure if it's exactly what was wanted.

Bored Panda News

Bored Panda is a leading art and pop culture magazine which is viewed nearly 100 million times every month. Our mission is to spread good news and highlight top artists from around the world.

news.boredpanda.com

 

[rumble]

I can't necessarily recommend NEWS sites to make your life happier, but if you like animals, channels like The Dodo are pretty fun:

Otherwise you have to wait for pap like this:

Richmond City Commissioner arrested... for a good cause

Mar. 21—Blake Vickers They finally got him. City Commissioner Jim Newby was "arrested" at the Richmond Athletic Club by officers with the Richmond Police Department (RPD) on Monday afternoon. The commissioner's incarceration is all for a good cause, though, as Newby is participating in the...

news.yahoo.com

Good news, btw, is in the eye of the beholder. Can you imagine a news cycle without bad news? I mean, some media sites have perfected the art of shitting all over everything, but most of them would just flounder.