News coverage is terrible at capturing the biggest good news stories: the long-term trends that show vast improvements in human living standards across long stretches of time. We need to fix that.
Brian, thank-you for this article, it reinforces something I have been thinking about since the November election. I now actively ‘filter’ news I consume to pull out data but ignore the ‘drama’. I have been noticing that everything is a crisis, catastrophe or an historically bad happening, I guess I have been unconsciously noticing the ‘hooks’. I appreciate all your musings but this one is particularly meaningful for me 😊. Again, thank-you!
This is a much needed reminder to all of us that there is good in the world and good people who make the world a better place. In the aftermath of Trump 2.0 it gives you a feeling that better days may still lie ahead of us!
There are some authors who are trying to include the positive in the news - the Skimm, 1440, The Neutral - BUT they are covering those anecdotal kinds of stories - one of a kind thing. They are missing the long term focus you make so clear! Thank you...maybe some of those new folks are listening.
My answer to your initial question was 10% - which wasn’t as far off as I feared (while still being worse than the answer you revealed by a good margin nonetheless).
I’m not sure that dollars per day is the best measure for the condition this data is supposed to represent. I think you might have a different picture if it was presented in calories per day. I’m not a data guy but I think that data bias also creates problems in perception that “big picture” articles have to point out and/or guard against.
Yes, I thought another way would be to show how many people had enough food, shelter, and fuel for warmth and cooking. And the reverse, how many were hungry and living in miserable conditions. But perhaps that is too subjective and difficult to measure on a graph. Thus the need for storytelling.
Indeed, but every objective metric shows a similar story to the extreme poverty measure. For example, until alarmingly recently, about four out of ten kids died before they hit their fifth birthday. A way, way lower proportion do today. It’s not just a cherry picked metric.
I didn't mean to suggest that this data was cherry picked. My point was that data bias could be as misleading as event bias so readers need to be critical thinkers regardless whether it is news or big picture. Which, as I type it, seems silly to point out.
That said, my thought in commenting was that I had a grandmother who lost 3 of her 5 children to childhood diseases but she and her spouse lived well into their 70's. As you point out, potential lifespan is different that life expectancy but if you moved the starting point from birth to let's say 15 or 20 the life expectancy curve would likely be very similar to the potential lifespan curve. Life expectancy from birth was radically changed by antibiotics and the life expectancy chart is somewhat misleading without noting that technological advance.
The same grandparents were essentially subsistence farmers and had very poor years but you could never call them poor if you looked at their calorie intake. I think the same might be true for people living in communal settings or situations where their calorie intake is not directly related to their incomes and those situations I don't think would be adequately reflected in a single chart that dealt with income alone.
I agree that life overall has been getting better in many ways. It certainly did for minorities and women during my lifetime. Steven Pinker described the overall decline in violence in The Better Angels of Our Nature some time ago.
But I do worry about the US at the moment. Even life expectancy: as you note, that has risen in part because babies survive today at much higher rates, and my insulin is keeping ME alive past 80. (During the pandemic I worried more about supply of insulin ceasing than getting Covid). But what is going to happen when we have anti-vaxxer in control of health here? What will happen if Trump gets FEMA abolished, leaving it to states to rescue citizens from floods, hurricanes, fires? What will happen with climate change in general to the food supply? We got past the dire prognostications of The Population Bomb through improvements in food production. Will that keep happening? What is the current block on research reporting on things like Bird Flu or research on other diseases going to do?
I know your point is to get beyond the news cycle, and look at the long term and what we can do to fix things. But what if a country refuses to even TRY to fix things?
Your graph shows a dip in all countries thanks to Covid. Is it still going down or is it rising after 2021?
Above all, what is the insidious growth of propaganda, usually false, and aimed at our own citizens BY our citizens, going to do to all those graphs. That scares me more that a general concentration on clicky events.
Agreed. I, too, have often considered that if I were living on a farm in southern Minnesota one hundred, fifty years ago, (ie. where my forebears lived) I wouldn't have known of floods in California, let alone China, and I try to remind myself of that. But now that I can see people suffering in real time, I sympathize with them, and simultaneously try not to fixate on tension-inducing stories. On the other hand, watching the Trump-show for the last eight years has been like reading a novel in installments, in real time. The world has changed so drastically so rapidly, it is unsettling. And yes, I'd say 'slow down and focus on the seasonal changes of nature,' but nature is also rapidly changing. I hardly recognize the world I'd known before. I look out my window, see pine and spruce covered mountains and imagine what it will look like in flames.
One more thing--just a question, really. Since out of chaos something new will emerge, is there a chance we will see something positive out of this regime's chaos? I'm heartened by seeing so many wonderful journalists and authors joining Substack and enjoying being given the freedom to say what they want and need to say.
Our endless material growth model on a finite planet undoubtedly produces more and some of that reaches people not reached before. But it has also seen wealth concentrate more. Grotesque inequality, of course is not a good news story but reality.
Thank you for the explanation and examples. I’ve somewhat disengaged from the news (my health was suffering), paying enough attention to know what is going on, but not wallowing in it.
This makes me think of an older book I recently read, titled 'Factulness' by Hans Rosling. I was amazed at how my long-term thinking was so biased. This piece of yours is of the same mindset as Dr Rosling's and is well worth thinking about.
Perhaps some of your future writing could explore efforts to "reinvent" journalism. There needs to be a reinvention of the methods and the business.
Method: "Mainstream" news lack the context, history, and forces that are the shapers of "events." All we get is the latest event and competing arguments to define it's meaning. How could a context-driven, or theme-driven approach work in practice? (Take pricing, for example. Dozens of factors effect price. Then there is price compared to ability to spend. How do you continually foreground the relevant context to make sense of price?)
Business: What models will keep journalists employed and free of undue influence from owners and advertisers? Non-profit? Confederation of niche journalists organized in a co-op? Something else?
Years ago (and maybe still, but I don’t watch) the local news ended every night with a feel-good story. That always felt contrived to me; as if to say, we just fed you all this horrific news, now here’s a nice sweet dessert to erase all that bad stuff. I would rather have seen a “Did You Know“ segment tied to the just-reported news. That would have been an educational way to use the hook and end on a more neutral note.
A friend criticizes me for believing in ‘human nature,’ that it’s like faith in God, unchanging. I say it’s not, because we can change ourselves — as we humans have done over the centuries. I love your posts and enjoyed reading this one again. A reminder in these sad days is needed.
Brian, thank-you for this article, it reinforces something I have been thinking about since the November election. I now actively ‘filter’ news I consume to pull out data but ignore the ‘drama’. I have been noticing that everything is a crisis, catastrophe or an historically bad happening, I guess I have been unconsciously noticing the ‘hooks’. I appreciate all your musings but this one is particularly meaningful for me 😊. Again, thank-you!
This is a much needed reminder to all of us that there is good in the world and good people who make the world a better place. In the aftermath of Trump 2.0 it gives you a feeling that better days may still lie ahead of us!
There are some authors who are trying to include the positive in the news - the Skimm, 1440, The Neutral - BUT they are covering those anecdotal kinds of stories - one of a kind thing. They are missing the long term focus you make so clear! Thank you...maybe some of those new folks are listening.
My answer to your initial question was 10% - which wasn’t as far off as I feared (while still being worse than the answer you revealed by a good margin nonetheless).
I’m not sure that dollars per day is the best measure for the condition this data is supposed to represent. I think you might have a different picture if it was presented in calories per day. I’m not a data guy but I think that data bias also creates problems in perception that “big picture” articles have to point out and/or guard against.
Yes, I thought another way would be to show how many people had enough food, shelter, and fuel for warmth and cooking. And the reverse, how many were hungry and living in miserable conditions. But perhaps that is too subjective and difficult to measure on a graph. Thus the need for storytelling.
Indeed, but every objective metric shows a similar story to the extreme poverty measure. For example, until alarmingly recently, about four out of ten kids died before they hit their fifth birthday. A way, way lower proportion do today. It’s not just a cherry picked metric.
I didn't mean to suggest that this data was cherry picked. My point was that data bias could be as misleading as event bias so readers need to be critical thinkers regardless whether it is news or big picture. Which, as I type it, seems silly to point out.
That said, my thought in commenting was that I had a grandmother who lost 3 of her 5 children to childhood diseases but she and her spouse lived well into their 70's. As you point out, potential lifespan is different that life expectancy but if you moved the starting point from birth to let's say 15 or 20 the life expectancy curve would likely be very similar to the potential lifespan curve. Life expectancy from birth was radically changed by antibiotics and the life expectancy chart is somewhat misleading without noting that technological advance.
The same grandparents were essentially subsistence farmers and had very poor years but you could never call them poor if you looked at their calorie intake. I think the same might be true for people living in communal settings or situations where their calorie intake is not directly related to their incomes and those situations I don't think would be adequately reflected in a single chart that dealt with income alone.
Loved the article.
Grateful for this perspective. Many thanks Brian. That you penned this piece at this point in time is no Fluke!
I agree that life overall has been getting better in many ways. It certainly did for minorities and women during my lifetime. Steven Pinker described the overall decline in violence in The Better Angels of Our Nature some time ago.
But I do worry about the US at the moment. Even life expectancy: as you note, that has risen in part because babies survive today at much higher rates, and my insulin is keeping ME alive past 80. (During the pandemic I worried more about supply of insulin ceasing than getting Covid). But what is going to happen when we have anti-vaxxer in control of health here? What will happen if Trump gets FEMA abolished, leaving it to states to rescue citizens from floods, hurricanes, fires? What will happen with climate change in general to the food supply? We got past the dire prognostications of The Population Bomb through improvements in food production. Will that keep happening? What is the current block on research reporting on things like Bird Flu or research on other diseases going to do?
I know your point is to get beyond the news cycle, and look at the long term and what we can do to fix things. But what if a country refuses to even TRY to fix things?
Your graph shows a dip in all countries thanks to Covid. Is it still going down or is it rising after 2021?
Above all, what is the insidious growth of propaganda, usually false, and aimed at our own citizens BY our citizens, going to do to all those graphs. That scares me more that a general concentration on clicky events.
Agreed. I, too, have often considered that if I were living on a farm in southern Minnesota one hundred, fifty years ago, (ie. where my forebears lived) I wouldn't have known of floods in California, let alone China, and I try to remind myself of that. But now that I can see people suffering in real time, I sympathize with them, and simultaneously try not to fixate on tension-inducing stories. On the other hand, watching the Trump-show for the last eight years has been like reading a novel in installments, in real time. The world has changed so drastically so rapidly, it is unsettling. And yes, I'd say 'slow down and focus on the seasonal changes of nature,' but nature is also rapidly changing. I hardly recognize the world I'd known before. I look out my window, see pine and spruce covered mountains and imagine what it will look like in flames.
One more thing--just a question, really. Since out of chaos something new will emerge, is there a chance we will see something positive out of this regime's chaos? I'm heartened by seeing so many wonderful journalists and authors joining Substack and enjoying being given the freedom to say what they want and need to say.
Our endless material growth model on a finite planet undoubtedly produces more and some of that reaches people not reached before. But it has also seen wealth concentrate more. Grotesque inequality, of course is not a good news story but reality.
🎵Well, bad news travels like wild fire
Good news travels slow
They all call me 'Wildfire' 'cause everybody knows
I'm bad news, everywhere I go
Always gettin' in a trouble🎶Johnny Cash
Thank you for the explanation and examples. I’ve somewhat disengaged from the news (my health was suffering), paying enough attention to know what is going on, but not wallowing in it.
This makes me think of an older book I recently read, titled 'Factulness' by Hans Rosling. I was amazed at how my long-term thinking was so biased. This piece of yours is of the same mindset as Dr Rosling's and is well worth thinking about.
Perhaps some of your future writing could explore efforts to "reinvent" journalism. There needs to be a reinvention of the methods and the business.
Method: "Mainstream" news lack the context, history, and forces that are the shapers of "events." All we get is the latest event and competing arguments to define it's meaning. How could a context-driven, or theme-driven approach work in practice? (Take pricing, for example. Dozens of factors effect price. Then there is price compared to ability to spend. How do you continually foreground the relevant context to make sense of price?)
Business: What models will keep journalists employed and free of undue influence from owners and advertisers? Non-profit? Confederation of niche journalists organized in a co-op? Something else?
Thank you for this I've just bookmarked Our World in Data among my Check Daily sites.
Years ago (and maybe still, but I don’t watch) the local news ended every night with a feel-good story. That always felt contrived to me; as if to say, we just fed you all this horrific news, now here’s a nice sweet dessert to erase all that bad stuff. I would rather have seen a “Did You Know“ segment tied to the just-reported news. That would have been an educational way to use the hook and end on a more neutral note.
A friend criticizes me for believing in ‘human nature,’ that it’s like faith in God, unchanging. I say it’s not, because we can change ourselves — as we humans have done over the centuries. I love your posts and enjoyed reading this one again. A reminder in these sad days is needed.