Back in the early 1970s, when I was in my 30s, I was briefly married to my high school boyfriend. Dick had become the Editor of our local hometown newspaper. Marrying me brought him mostly private controversy — though I do remember writing a letter to the editor that took issue with “the news” that several people agreed with, in print.

What was bothering me: as I walked or biked around my home town, I had many experiences with others that I would call “good news.” My own experience made me realize that the world is full of good news, just as much as it is full of bad news. But bad news, my husband told me, is what sells. People are looking for the bad news, not the good news. Well, I wondered, why is that?

Here’s a post I wrote on the subject back in 1996.

The REAL Power of the Press

Excerpts:

Here we are, decades later, near the end of 2025, and not much has changed. Or has it?

Actually, much has changed. Mainstream media is going downhill, fast. The internet has opened us to an infinity of points of view, which means: it’s up to each of us to decide what “news” we want to count, to reference, to amplify.

For me, three accounts on Twitter/X stand out at this point:

Mr PitBull

Crazy Vibes

Mr Commonsense

Each of these accounts tells stories, of strangers interacting with each other in magnanimous ways. And often, what someone does others notice, and then, as “one thing leads to another,” the original magnanimous action ends up blossoming into community.

Each of these stories warms my heart. I always repost them.

Now of course, some of these stories could be made up, not real. But I say, it doesn’t matter. Even imaginary stories like these help us grow into truly human beings, radiating love.

Here, for example, is one of Mr PitBull’s wonderful stories:

https://x.com/MrPitbull07/status/1994355106654159278