And Now For Some Good News

It better be

By Megan O’Neill

2020 has been a challenging year for everyone and online media has come to save the day with endless Zoom quizzes and FaceTime to keep you connected with the world outside your house – or has it? 

Watching the news became a point of dread, while your newsfeed has filled with worrying statistics and bad news after bad news. Now, I’m not saying that this information was not essential, but I think we can all agree that we were and are eagerly awaiting more positive news.

Fortunately, there are many companies and social media pages that are already one step ahead of the game when it comes to being a positive media platform and brightening up your newsfeed during these difficult times. 

The Happy Newspaper

First up, we have The Happy Newspaper. Designer and Illustrator Emily Coxhead, 22-years-old at the time, noticed the negative effect that the news was having on her own mental health so set out on a mission to change that.

Coxhead began a Kickstarter pledge which attracted 73 keen individuals and helped her raise just over £1,300 to begin her project. A team of talented writers, editors and illustrators now work with Coxhead to produce a brightly coloured, fun newspaper.

Since its launch in December 2015, The Happy Newspaper now has  over 20,000 subscribers in 33 countries across the globe. The 32-page publication is published quarterly and celebrates positive, good news from the previous three months. From just £3.99 / 3 months for a subscription, this newspaper is the perfect pick-me-up. 

The Happy Newspaper [Image: @thehappynewspaper]

As well as this, each publication has an Everyday Heroes section dedicated to people, groups, and organisations who the public have nominated. These Everyday Heroes are ordinary people who don’t usually realise that they deserve recognition. 

Not only has the print newspaper been a huge success, but The Happy Newspaper brand has also expanded with an online shop stocking gifts such as keyrings, purses, confectionery, and bags, each with a positive and motivational design. Following her success with The Happy Newspaper, Coxhead has gone on to write and illustrate two journals: You Are Incredible Just as You Are and Make Someone Happy. 

Coxhead also created an Instagram page (@thehappynewspaper) with over 369,000 followers. Kenya’s elephant population doubling over the past 20 years and NASA renaming its headquarters after the first black female engineer, are just two examples of the positivity that is being shared over on the Instagram page. The page also shares motivational quotes, facts, and helplines to ensure followers don’t feel isolated.

Positive News

Positive News is another great magazine for - you guessed it - positive news. Similar to The Happy Newspaper, this magazine is published quarterly in print and published daily online. 

The online publication is divided into various subsections: Society, Environment, Lifestyle, Science, Economics, that give in-depth and factual articles about good things going on in the world. Subscriptions for Positive News cost £30 for the year and you receive four publications each year with access to the digital edition of the magazine, including past issues. 

An interview with Seán Wood, the CEO of Positive News, reveals he relaunched the company in 2016 as a way to show what is possible. 

“At the moment, the media is creating an overarching story that is holding society back due to its relentless focus on what’s going wrong. By showing what’s going right and where the seeds of progress are, we can help people to engage in society in a more positive way, connecting rather than dividing people, uplifting rather than depressing people, and empowering them to be part of the solutions to the challenges that societies face”, Wood explains.

“By showing what’s going right and where the seeds of progress are, we can help people to engage in society in a more positive way”

— Seán Wood, Positive News CEO

When asked how he believes Positive News has been beneficial during the COVID-19 pandemic, Wood says, “Our stories help people to see the bigger picture, to find out about progress and potential solutions to problems, to see that their choices and actions can matter, and to see the world in a way that helps them to feel hope rather than being left experiencing the negative health impacts of too much bad news.”

In response to what the main goals for the future of Positive News are, Wood noted, “To grow the reach and impact of our journalism to a point where the idea that news is about what's going wrong is no longer an unspoken norm in journalistic culture, and where reporting on progress and potential solutions becomes a norm of responsible journalism.”

As Wood said, these positive news companies have the opportunity to change the future of journalism and the way people view news outlets. Let’s hope the increase in usage of these sites over the past year will aid the public’s recognition of the progress being made around the world. 

Together we will thrive [Image: Positive News]

Some Good News 

Some Good News is a 2020 web series created and hosted by American actor and filmmaker John Krasinski. Krasinski developed and hosted the show on YouTube as a series dedicated entirely to good news. The show was produced during the COVID-19 pandemic from Krasinski’s home. 

The show consists of nine episodes, each running between 15-25 minutes. Krasinski was joined by various celebrity guests including his wife Emily Blunt, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Oprah Winfrey, Ryan Reynolds, Emma Stone, Brad Pitt, and Robert De Niro, to name a few. 

The show mimics the setup to many late-night shows where the host gives a rundown of the latest news in a light-hearted and comedic way. He covered issues from around the world in a more positive manner than typical news companies, such as the positive work of key workers.

Episode One opened with Krasinski saying “We are all going through an incredibly trying time, but, through all the anxiety, through all the confusion, all the isolation, and all the Tiger King, somehow the human spirit found a way to break through and blow us all away”. The episode continued with Krasinski being joined virtually by former co-star on The Office Steve Carell, as well as interviewing a 15-year-old cancer survivor.

Some Good News debuted on YouTube on the 29th of March 2020 and gained 330,000 subscribers overnight and the first episode was viewed 3.1 million times within the first day of being uploaded. The success continued and by episode eight, Krasinski drew in over 72 million views.

The web series received huge social media backing, including Michelle Obama sharing the video and saying, “I couldn’t help but smile after watching this video with John Kraskinski, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and the cast of Hamilton surprising a young fan, giving us all a little bit of joy at this difficult time.”

Not only was the series a huge success amongst us as an audience, but CBS also took an interest and bought the web series from Krasinski. The Emmy Award nominee went to Twitter to share his delight, “Wow who can believe when we started this thing together we all just wanted good news to be more fully represented in our everyday lives. And now? You quite literally ARE the good news! Thanks to you, SGN lives on, joining the ranks of this historic news network! See you all soon!”

Continuing the good news, Some Good News won a Special Achievement Award at the 2020 Webby Awards.

Happy Place Podcast

Happy Place is a successful podcast series hosted by English television and radio presenter, Fearne Cotton. Cotton has been joined by various celebrity guests to draw on her own experiences and share advice on how to work through a difficult time. The podcast covers a huge range of topics from mental health, self-confidence, and pressures of parenting to the positive effects of cold therapy and wellness.

The podcast launched in March 2018 and has proven very popular since then. In series one Cotton was joined by Dawn French, Emma Willis, Gok Wan, Matt Haig, and in series two, Gary Barlow, Russell Brand, Zoe Sugg, and Jamal Edwards, among many other prominent individuals. 

Like many of these companies, Happy Place also took to Instagram (@happyplaceofficial) to provide a platform for positivity. The empowering and inspirational brand that Cotton has created is loved across many platforms, with her Instagram holding over 169,000 followers. 

Her virtual Happy Place Festival has been created to present a month-long schedule of promoting and encouraging mental and physical wellbeing.

The Happy Place Podcast [Image: @happyplaceofficial]

Instagram can be a negative place with influencers sharing ‘the best bits’ of their lives and making the rest of us feel like we aren’t achieving as much as we perhaps could be – for one, we’re in a pandemic so it doesn’t matter how much we achieve.

There are many social media platforms out there promoting a more positive media space. @actionhappiness, @thehappinessprojectuk, @happier_habits, @powerofpositivity, and @justgirlproject are just a few of the many pages you could be following to brighten up your newsfeed.  @Powerofpositivity even provides a mobile number that you can text for daily inspiration. 

In a world of such uncertainty and negative media, there are spaces out there for positivity and motivation. If you are struggling and believe that the media is all doom and gloom at the moment, check out one of these publications or platforms and you’ll see that positivity is still going on in the world, and we are really all in it together.

There are plenty of media outlets to provide a bit more positivity to your newsfeed.