Don’t Watch the News – Look for Beauty

Watching the news is an addiction. It is a bad one, like smoking. It is bad for your mental health. You don’t need so many frequent updates to know what’s going on. We have seen this crystal clear in the Corona crisis. First of all the news is no longer news. The press became obsessed with Corona and hardly reported on anything else. That is because Corona offered an ideal opportunity to uncover suspected incompetence at all authority levels. This type of news is sold easily.

The established press is usually on one side of the polarisation trench. Countries with populist leaders were depicted as having bad numbers because of their leaders. Very often incomparable numbers were used. Moreover, nobody dared to suggest that viruses go their own way. Behaviour of leaders and people plays a role, but social and environmental factors like population density, season temperatures, travelling movements, lack of education and poverty are much more influential than political competence.

The reason is that journalists can only score through bringing disenchantment about politicians and local people in charge. This disenchantment resonates well in the social media but it doesn’t comfort people. Ordinary people may think they are smarter than the local authorities, but the truth is: they are not and they know it.

Instead of watching the news, go out to discover beauty. Beauty in art, in nature and in other people. For the corona crisis has also demonstrated the best in people: yes, we can change our life style, yes, we can take care of other people and yes, we have developed a new cure in an amazingly short period of time. Therefore, don’t watch the daily news. It’s far better to read a weekly magazine, like my blog.

See my blogs: “Triumph of Discord” and “De informatieverstrekkende macht als vierde politieke macht”.