Bad news is not the norm
The most relevant news of the day will sometimes be the most difficult to hear. But bad news is not the norm. When reporters look more broadly, there鈥檚 light to be found amid the darkness.
Five women won reparations from Belgium for colonial-rule crimes 鈥� one of the most memorable Points of Progress items for our writer, Cameron Pugh. The women, pictured in 2020, are the offspring of African mothers and European fathers. They were taken as children from their families in what is now Congo, Rwanda, and Burundi.
Francisco Seco/AP/File
鈥淲hy do reporters only seem to write about bad news?鈥� It鈥檚 a question many journalists have faced at some point in their career.
When a trusted source asked a journalist friend of mine that question, she gave him an answer that has stuck with me. Newspapers tend to report on things that depart from the norm, she said. A store getting robbed, for example, is more unusual than a store not getting robbed, and thus captures the attention of news gatherers and readers.
I see two truths in her words. First, the most relevant news of the day will sometimes be the most difficult to hear. Second, and perhaps more important, bad news is not the norm. If you look more broadly 鈥� by examining a longer stretch of time, or by digging deeper 鈥� you鈥檒l often find light amid the darkness.
I鈥檝e tried to keep both of those truths in mind during my two-year tenure as the lead writer of the Monitor鈥檚 Points of Progress feature. Many tragedies have consumed the news since I started working on the section. Political polarization has sharpened; devastating wars in Gaza, Ukraine, and Sudan have raged; and countries around the globe have slid closer to authoritarianism. For readers, that darkness can feel impenetrable.
Yet every week, my editor, co-writer, and I managed to find pieces of good news from around the world. Although it sometimes felt like looking for a needle in a haystack, it was also gratifying to see how people march toward something better in ways both big and small. The progress we found countered not only the deluge of bad news, but also the entrenched narratives that cast developing countries as backward and ignore the true spirit of their citizens.
I鈥檝e also learned harder truths about progress. It鈥檚 contextual 鈥� progress in one place is not necessarily progress in another. It doesn鈥檛 march to a steady drumbeat, and often involves taking three steps forward and two steps back.
It鈥檚 also full of caveats. A touching story in this issue of the Weekly 鈥� penned by Troy Aidan Sambajon, who also co-writes Points of Progress 鈥� highlights that dynamic well. His story traces two sides of a community-led effort to clean up excess garbage in Oakland, California, by examining both the caring people doing the work and the gap in city services that lets trash accumulate in the first place.
Progress is there if you look for it. It marches on 鈥� messy, unsteady, and persistent. That remains an important part of any story, even if it doesn鈥檛 always capture our attention.