No News is Good News

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Location: The Manitoba Legislature – Winnipeg, Manitoba

I remember, almost to the date and time, when I stopped reading the news. I was in my early twenties, living away from home (and thus away from daily newspaper delivery) for the first time. The world was in chaos as, in my experience, it seemed to be perpetually, and I was struggling to balance university work with my part-time job to pay rent on my first apartment. A constant stream of murders, rapes and political scandals felt like just one more thing I couldn’t handle. And it was the one I could give up.

…so I stopped reading the news.

In hindsight, I know that making a conscious choice to stop reading the news, to stop engaging with the wider world, was a reflection of my extreme privilege. The act of choosing to narrow my own horizons to make the world more palatable for myself reflects an unwillingness to recognize the fact that the problems of others matter just as much as my own, and are equally deserving of my attention. People who have real problems don’t get the choice to ignore them. The fact that I had a choice confirms that I had none, a fact I was already well aware of. But the fact that I had no real problems of my own did not mean, even for a moment, that the world stopped being problematic.

On the contrary, I think one could argue that the world remains as problematic now as it was ten years ago. And it is, at least partially, a function of the fact that many people like me chose not to see problems that didn’t directly impact us.

When I got my first iPhone, I began to see more of the news, largely unintentionally. The advent of Apple News means I am constantly inundated with articles that my browsing history suggests will interest me. But until recently, the recommendations were always the same; medical breakthroughs and research, financial forecasts, the occasional travel article. Essentially, my reading list was entirely reflective of my own relatively insular life and specific interests.

They say that no news is good news. And when it comes to the events of the world that journalists are duty bound to report, I am inclined to agree. But nothing gives me, or anyone else, the right to shrink back from the truth just because it’s ugly. I would never treat another person in that way, and I can’t treat our collective existence that way, either. As long as problems like social, racial and economic inequality exist in the world, I do and will have real problems – because those problems belong to me as a citizen of the world just as much as they belong to the individuals who are unfortunate enough to be directly impacted by them.

I – and we all – have an obligation to work to affect change where we can. And sometimes that starts with something as simple as engaging with the news to understand where change is needed. The reality, I’m beginning to realise, is that change is a lot like happiness. It’s not a state of being, or the end of a journey, but a choice. For a long time, I chose the opposite of change, because it was easy and comfortable for me personally. I acknowledge that choice as both selfish and regrettable. But now that I know better, I can do better.

My commitment to change may not, in fact, change anything. But the guarantee of good results isn’t what makes an act worthwhile. At the end of all of this, even if nothing changes, and we still live in a world where no news is good news, I will know, at least, that I tried. Which is so much more than I was doing before.

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