This may explain some things.
As it turns out, one of the reasons so much bad news gets aired is that it gets our attention, faster.
"Mind Hacks" blogger Tom Stafford at BBC Future:
As you'd expect from [a hypothesized "negativity bias"], there's some evidence that people respond quicker to negative words. In lab experiments, flash the word 'cancer', 'bomb' or 'war' up at someone and they can hit a button in response quicker than if that word is 'baby', 'smile' or 'fun' (despite these pleasant words being slightly more common). We are also able to recognise negative words faster than positive words, and even tell that a word is going to be unpleasant before we can tell exactly what the word is going to be.
We don't learn by accumulating more information, which is the empty promise of too much online media, but by the integration of information into a larger personal whole with an emotional, cultural and cognitive dimension. In healthy environments and robust relationships, beliefs are challenged rather than continually affirmed. When we're consumed by the bad news, and I certainly have been guilty of this in my day-to-day, we're being sold the cause of, and solution to, the anxiety bad news can produce. In this case, more is not better. And the results are predictable, not the least because our field of vision gradually, imperceptibly narrows over time.
Because we can't embrace what we don't notice, the interesting, the new, the innovative - the future, in other words - suffers. These things have sometimes required an effort and a willingness to reject the solutions on offer. This year, the IdeaFestival will bring you glamor, exoplanets, tribes, virgin media, time warped, creative capital and a hole in the sky.
Why? The news, it's everywhere.
Stay curious.
Wayne
Image of Teller at IdeaFestival 2008, Geoff Oliver Bugbee