The lack of good news

Some thoughts on the impact of the brazilian media on the nation's perspective of the world.

I'm brazilian, studied, have a good job and a loving family. Some might say I have nothing to complain about, and maybe I really don't, but somehow something feels very wrong to me. Well, I'm a designer and I don't have psychology knowledge enough to technically base my arguments here, so take them as a personal point of view. (Also, english is my second language so you may find some grammar mistakes along the way =/)

This discontent of mine took shape in my mind when I realized that everyday, when I type the local news URL, I know that I'll have to scroll through killing, arresting, traffic, corruption and impunity to try to get to some actual constructive material. As far as I know, this is not a brazilian problem alone, but a worldwide terrible plague.

So then I wondered 'well, why don't you just look for some good news source?'. Would that be denying reality? Living in a perfect world where only good things happen? On the other hand, what kind of impact does this massive flood of negativity have in our society in a long term? Well, I can tell in my behalf that all that can crush one's hopes of a prosperous future, that's for sure.

The rise of reports on theft schemes and corruption that end up with no penalty in sight is estimulating a social behaviour that doing the wrong thing is the only way you can live the life you wish for. The brazilian culture is turning into 'every man for himself' where you can see corruption happening in small daily examples, not only in politic's megalomaniac maneuvers. People support justice as long as it benefits their own interests, but are the first to be against it if they're feeling threatened, all that in a very open way, no shame about it. The most shocking part of this behaviour is that doing the right thing is actually laughed at. Would it help if these people had access to more examples of successful cases of people who do good and still thrive?

On my pursuit for good news, I ran into a series of documentaries made by the economist Jim O'Neill for BBC about the next big economic giants of the world: the MINT (Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey). The effect of that information on me was of an immediate sense of hope. How come the news concerning the effort of these countries are not all over the place? These governments are fighting hard to make economic, educational, energy and social reforms to be competitive against China, one of the biggest economies in the world. Of course they're facing problems like corruption, poverty and lack of infrastructure, but their energy in focused on trying to make positive changes for the whole nation. Now, that's inspiring!

I made a quick search on Google in portuguese that began with "O mundo está", which means "The world is". The four main results were:
1- O mundo está acabando (the world is ending)
2- O mundo está perdido (the world is lost)
3- O mundo está doente (the world is sick)
4- O mundo está podre (the world is rotten)

I made a search in english that says "the world is becoming", and the results were a little different:
1- The world is becoming flat
2- The world is becoming more evil
3- The world is becoming globalized
4- The world is becoming a better place

The openness of the internet took away the monopoly of TV channels and newspaper industries of delivering information, but they still have a massive influence on their nations opinion about the world. Of course they aren't responsible for the problems, as their job is to keep the population informed. But maybe the responsability that is in their hands, which is either giving a message of hope and thrive or spreading awareness and fear to a whole nation, makes them a part of the solution.