‘Negative news publications should come with a health warning’

Policies from the Ministry of Imagination

In this series, we share some of the most compelling ideas from the Ministry of Imagination Manifesto – a compilation of audacious policies to improve the world, thought up by guests on the podcast What If to What Next, hosted by Rob Hopkins. In this first article, we begin with sharing an idea from Positive News chief executive, Sean Wood.

Policy idea #1: Put health warnings on media outlets dominated by bad news

Imagine. You heard the on-the-hour radio news bulletin while you got dressed that morning. You glanced at headlines on your phone on the way to work. You read the paper while you waited for your coffee in a cafe. Each encounter was, typically for the mainstream news, filled with death and doom – and accompanied by a familiar feeling. Of being slightly on-edge. Anxious.

But after each snippet, you also heard or read a warning: ‘Too much negative news may cause a distorted view of reality and harm your mental health.’ It was enough of a reminder to try to balance things out. So you sought out some constructive news that evening. A few hopeful headlines online as the kids had their bath, and later, an uplifting current affairs documentary. Things felt steadier. Calmer. More positive.

Since the mandatory health warnings for majority-bad news media outlets were introduced, you’ve been much more aware of balancing your media intake so that you get a wider perspective on problems and progress. For the first time, you’ve really thought about it. Less doomscrolling, and more conscious solution-seeking. You’re surprised at how much you accepted negative news to be normal, and how much better your mental health has felt as a result of the shift.

This is the vision of Seán Wood, CEO of Positive News. While the idea of health warnings on news outlets is tongue in cheek, the principle of such a measure is the need to help people to more consciously manage their media diet. “It might help us grow our understanding of how our brains are compelling us to consume the news because it triggers, essentially, our survival response – our desire to know about threats.”

It could be enough to start to break down the assumption that news has to be bad, and that bad news is all that’s important

All that information, he says, could in fact be counterproductive to us leading empowered lives. Mandatory warnings may just create enough of a gap, he believes, where we can think about what level of problem-focused news is useful, and then what kind of nourishing media we might want to consume to balance it out. “Deciding to find five solution-focused stories a day perhaps – like we might target eating five portions of fruit and veg,” Wood suggests. “It could be enough to start to break down the assumption that news has to be bad, and that bad news is all that’s important. It’s been normalised that news is negative, but it doesn’t need to be that way at all – good news matters too.”

The idea originally came from Denise Baden, a professor at The University of Southampton who researched ethical issues in news. She used the idea of health warnings as an illustration of how significant the impact of bad news is upon how people feel and upon their sense of agency in the world.

Wood hears from readers all the time about how the daily breaking news cycle feels like a background stress, a visceral response that can build over time.

The news media amounts to, he points out, an overarching shared story of how the world is. “The impact of that is obviously significant in terms of how it steers people’s attention, and what thoughts and feelings it can trigger, and how we then act,” says Wood. “While it’s important to highlight problems so that society can course-correct, when there’s an absence of coverage of responses to problems – what’s improving, where the seeds of positive change are – then a overly-negative narrative becomes counterproductive. It can leave people feeling anxious, depressed, helpless, hopeless, fearing other people, fearing the future. All valid feelings, yet ones that arise from a narrow view within the media of humanity at its worst.

“But Positive News shows that there can be a more balanced way of understanding the world, that keeps us informed, but allows people to engage more because we see a bigger picture, we see potential solutions and opportunities to contribute, we see the human potential.”

Illustration: Tom Humberstone

To read more about the Ministry of Imagination Manifesto, visit www.robhopkins.net