The news is often depressing, that’s a fact. The media are filled, every day, with texts about war, accidents and trials, about villains and profiteers.
A bit normal: journalists focus on what is rolling up. They keep a close eye on things. That’s why they are often called “watchdogs of democracy”.
So, of course, there is something negative about continuing with business as usual. The headlines are about what goes wrong rather than the train arriving on time or the child getting enough to eat.
Still, the question arises…
Is there a way to be less negative, less dark?
The questioning is nothing new, to be honest (remember “The Good News GM”!), but it has taken on a more intense tone since the pandemic.
You have had, dear readers, too much bad news for too long, we can feel it.
The many emails you have sent us in recent years confirm this: the multiplication of crises (COVID-19, Ukraine, inflation, climate, Israel, etc.) has caused stress, anxiety and, by extension, a certain form of “information fatigue”.
We’re seeing this phenomenon everywhere, not just here. “Many people around the world feel that media coverage is too negative, repetitive, and leaves a feeling of helplessness,” notes the industry’s authoritative Digital News Report 2022.
As a result, the rate of “active avoidance,” which involves turning one’s back on current events, has doubled in many countries since 2017.1.
But what should the media do to reduce this anxiety, precisely? Hide negative news? Multiply positive news? Buy rose-colored glasses for journalists?
Some niche media have indeed explored this avenue (positive news, not glasses!), but without much success, because let’s face it: this is not what citizens are looking for when they go to the news. They want to be truly informed about what is happening in the world… even if they do not want to bow under the horror of the world.
And we understand them.
HAS The Presswe have therefore chosen to respond to this trend by diversifying our content a little more, by focusing more on what can give readers meaning and a feeling of control over their lives.
We created a team of journalists dedicated to purchasing power, for example. We dedicated a newsletter and a subsection of our mobile application to “feel-good stories.”
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We have also added highlights at the beginning of the texts on the war in Ukraine and the conflict between Israel and Hamas, so that readers can learn about the latest developments without necessarily seeing the accompanying images.
We have emphasized the distinction between the editions of The Press+ weekdays and weekends, so that the texts are less dark on Saturdays and Sundays when possible. And we have diversified our daily journalistic coverage, in order to continue to inform, while explaining more, contextualizing, inspiring and being useful in the lives of readers.
PHOTO MARTIN TREMBLAY, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
In the sports section, our journalist Éric Martel told us how the football program at Dalbé-Viau high school reduced the dropout rate.
These changes illustrate our desire to focus on constructive journalism. An approach that allows us to consider improving a given situation, to glimpse possible solutions, or even to improve individual, social or collective well-being.
So it is not “positive journalism”, an expression that I do not like, because it is too tacked on and restrictive.
A concrete example: Yves Boisvert in Oregon. He took stock of the decriminalization of hard drugs in this American state. It was certainly not positive journalism, since his observation is that the approach is a failure! But by drawing lessons and insights from this initiative, Yves certainly brought a constructive angle to the subject at a time when the debate on decriminalization is taking place in Canada.
Read the Yves Boisvert file in Oregon
This is the constructive approach that guides us with our new multi-section project “A world of solutions”, some parts of which you have seen in recent days, such as on Saturday, with the text by Marie-Eve Morasse on the diversity of schools in Toulouse, France.
This is also what we had in mind when we opened new journalist positions in recent months for sectors that are precisely in need of hope. I am thinking of health, a sector for which we have added a “medical breakthroughs” section, as we call it among ourselves. And I am thinking of the environment, which now has a “human factor” section in the general news section and a “green shift” section in business.
These efforts are not intended to paint the news in candy pink, far from it. Rather, they serve to diversify the offering to readers, so that they can find all the information of public interest that they are looking for, in addition to adding some clearings through the clouds that can sometimes seem gray and threatening.
Next Sunday: Readers no longer want to be told what to think…
Read “In Search of Lost Context,” the first in the series on changes to The Press
1. Read the Digital News Report 2022 (in English)
Write to Francis Cardinal