Turn on the 6pm news and it's crashes, crimes, and cost of living. Somewhere in New Zealand today, something good happened. Why didn't it make the news?
I was watching the 6pm news the other night. In the first ten minutes there was a crash, a court case, a story about grocery prices, and something on fire.
Then there was a story about a dog who could surf. That was minute nineteen.
I asked Mum why the news is like this. She said, "because good news doesn't rate." I said, "what does rate mean?" She said, "it means more people watch when it's bad."
Which is honestly a bit depressing.
Here's the thing I keep chewing on. Somewhere in Aotearoa New Zealand today, a nurse saved somebody. A teacher explained fractions in a way that finally clicked. A kid was kind to another kid at lunch. A scientist got one step closer to something. None of that will be on TV tonight.
I get why. If the news was just "everything was mostly okay today", nobody would watch. Bad news is louder. Bad news is a warning. Our brains are built to pay attention to danger.
But if you only watch the news, you'd think Aotearoa New Zealand is basically on fire, financially, morally, and sometimes literally. And it's not. It's mostly a country full of pretty decent people doing normal things.
I don't think the fix is "make the news happier." That'd be fake. The fix, maybe, is remembering that the news is a highlight reel of the worst stuff, on purpose, because that's what gets watched. It's not a documentary about the whole country.
If you're a kid reading this and the news is making you sad, that's fair. Just remember you're seeing the ten worst things out of five million people's day. You are not seeing the surfing dog. The surfing dog is out there. The surfing dog is real.