{"id":30413,"date":"2026-10-29T19:13:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-29T18:13:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/?p=30413"},"modified":"2026-10-29T22:06:56","modified_gmt":"2026-10-29T21:06:56","slug":"how-much-does-news-really-matter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/?p=30413","title":{"rendered":"How much does the news really matter?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">How often have you heard someone say: &#8220;All the news is bad. It&#8217;s so depressing.&#8221; What we have to realise that it is an essential feature of the news that most of the news<strong> has <\/strong>to be bad; otherwise it&#8217;s <strong>not<\/strong> news. What do I mean?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Consider these alternative headlines:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Five people were killed today in a crash on the M1. Fewer people than average were killed on British roads today. [The average death toll is four a day.] Which is news? <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">More illegal immigrants arrived in Britain on boats today than on any day in several months. The number of migrants crossing the Channel on boats so far this year is 40% less than for the same period last year. [The percentage figure comes from official Home Office statistics.] Which is news?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The death rates for gallbladder, eye, liver and kidney cancers are all rising. Over the past decade, the overall cancer rate has fallen by approximately 11%. [All this information is from Cancer Research UK.] Which is news?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The British Prime Minister said something sensible today. The American President said something outrageous today. Which is news?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So, by all means read, watch and listen to the news, but recognise that it&#8217;s not the whole story and often it&#8217;s not the main story. By its very nature, most reported news is going to be bad while much unreported news is good. Headlines will usually be bad but so many trendlines are good. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How often have you heard someone say: &#8220;All the news is bad. It&#8217;s so depressing.&#8221; What we have to realise that it is an essential feature of the news that most of the news has to be bad; otherwise it&#8217;s not news. What do I mean? Consider these alternative headlines: Five people were killed today [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-my-life-thoughts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30413"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30413\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30416,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30413\/revisions\/30416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}