Kerby Anderson

It seems like wherever we turn, there is lots of bad news. That is one of the reasons that I focus part of my time on radio talking about stories and statistics that bring good news. Last week John Stossel wrote a column about “good news.” Much of it came from an article in Reason magazine that says we “live in world of reliable miracles.”

The author says that you can go to the Internet and see “clips of hearing-impaired people getting their cochlear implants turned on for the first time” and videos of “paraplegics walking with the help of adaptive prosthetics, infants getting their first pair of coke-bottle glasses, and more.”

John Stossel then explains why we get a steady diet of bad news. He explains that, “my profession wins clicks and ratings by hyping whatever makes us afraid. Reporters ignore gradual improvement, and sometimes, miracles.”

Of course, the improvements are not only in technology. People live healthier and longer lives. Nearly all of us have access to vast troves of information on the Internet, even though hardly anyone had access to it three decades ago. And there are great improvements in our economy, but you wouldn’t know it by listening to many of our pundits and politicians.

For example, we are told that the middle class is disappearing. While that is true, it omits the most important part of that economic fact. The middle class is getting smaller because people are getting richer. We will attach a chart from Reason so you can see it for yourself. More and more Americans are moving out of the middle class to the upper class. And there are also fewer and fewer Americans in low-income households.

We don’t know the good news because the media surrounds us with bad news. And some of what the media presents as bad news is actually good news. That’s why I work to bring stories and statistics about good news on a regular basis.