And NOW for the GOOD NEWS

I had a random conversation with a couple of guys a few days ago. One of them in a frustrated voice said, “I don’t watch the bleep (expletive) bleep (expletive) news any more! It’s all bad news.” I couldn’t help but agree, when it seems most of the news is about ‘wars and rumours of wars.’ 
I followed up our conversation with an unscientific survey of the first 15 news stories on BBC, Radio New Zealand and the New Zealand Herald (All online). The BBC had 11 bad news stories and 4 good news stories. Radio NZ had the same numbers. The NZ Herald had 8 bad and 7 good. So, it would appear that there is more bad news around us than good news. But why is this so? 
A conundrum to me is there’s a lot more ‘good’ people in our world doing good things than ‘bad’ people doing bad things, and there’s a lot more kind people in our world than unkind. 
The bias of negative news needs to change (Interestingly our community newspapers and school newsletters are full of positive news). 
What about you and me? What sort of good news do we share in our conversations and social media interactions? What do we talk about with our children and grandchildren? Our friends? Good news starts with us. We can dare to be voices of hope, joy and kindness.


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