Plenty of people claim that they don’t pay attention to the news because it’s too depressing. The sentiment is certainly understandable—current events aren’t exactly the sunny side of life. Luckily, for these people, there are websites and print publications from around the world, all presenting news that’s meant to leave you feeling hopeful. It’s the glass-half-full beat.
This type of news is often solution-centric. Jurriaan Kamp has made this the focus of his magazine Ode, which bills itself as a publication “for intelligent optimists.” He says that media should not only inform people of problems, but also possibilities, and most stories in Ode are a balance of both. “I think focusing on just good news is just as stupid as focusing on just bad news,” says Kamp. “The reality is different. We do face challenges, but what is wrong is writing about what goes wrong and then just leaving people with that.”
Before starting Ode, Kamp spent a decade heading the economics desk for the Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad. During the week he assigned reporters and edited stories, but on the weekends, he enjoyed visiting bookstores near his home in Amsterdam and browsing the new arrivals.
“One day it dawned on me that that the books I bought were always about solutions,” says Kamp. After reading them over the weekend, it was “back to figuring out whatever the next problem was, and finding the writer to deal with that,” says Kamp. “I realized I was much more interested in solutions than problems. When that disconnect became clear to me I realized it’s time to do something else.”
Ode started in 1995, and was initially only printed in Dutch. Eventually the operation moved to San Francisco, and in 2004, Kamp started an English language version. The magazine presently has 150,000 English language subscribers, and 25,000 Dutch.
Kamp’s newest project, an aggregator called Ode Wire, launched this June. The site scours mainstream news sources for what Kamp refers to as “page 23 stories.” The criteria: a “solution-oriented and optimistic point of view.” They’re in almost every paper, but they are usually buried “on page 23,” hence the nickname. This story sift is done with an algorithm created by Tim Musgrove and his semantic search company TextDigger. It’s a one-stop shop for positive articles from legacy media.
Another noteworthy example is Positive News, founded in the United Kingdom by Shauna Crockett-Burrows in 1993. She describes it as a place to read about “what is breaking through rather than breaking down.” There’s a featured story about flash-mob meditations occurring around London, or a recent post about the installation of community centers in British Museums. While critics may say this type of news is sappy or superficial, Crockett-Burrows feels quite differently. “We don’t deal with soft news. We deal with real people doing real things out in the world,” she says. “We choose to not report on scandal and tragedy because that is being reported day in and day out. We’re not in denial that these things are happening, but there is so much positive news in the world that deserves to be reported.”
Positive News UK prints a twenty-four-page long broadsheet four times a year. It has some 5,000 subscribers, and over 50,000 additional copies are printed per issue and distributed for free by volunteers. It operates through donations, advertising, subscription fees, and a “sponsor a bundle” program, which allows supporters to buy in bulk for distribution. The content is written by freelancers, interns, and the editors.
The Positive News brand has expanded to include print publications in the United States and Hong Kong, a website in Spain, and a website with an accompanying radio show in Argentina. Each version is independently owned and operated, though there is some content sharing between them. Crockett-Burrows says she never expected the publication to get distributed this widely, but she just “hit the right spot at the right time.”

Amazing article Alysia. Its fascinating how were able to compile such a diverse set of examples dealing with the "positivity deficit" as we like to call it :)
Willa Seidenberg comment "Journalists are trained to look for the conflict. That’s Journalism 101" was really interesting. Conflict stories are so much easier because they are so much more obvious. I am of the strong opinion that Journalists reporting positive stories are more technically sound because realizing and conveying inspiration is not as easy as reporting a happening like a murder or mugging.
Majid Mirza
(www.goodnews.pk)
#1 Posted by Majid Mirza, CJR on Tue 20 Sep 2011 at 04:24 PM
Come now. If you want happy news tune into any local morning TV show or any local newscast. Pardon me, but for the moment I will stick with the motto of comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable. No one doubts there are good news stories to be told about places like South Central L.A. but any fair analysis would reveal that the bad news, the really bad news, remains under-reported. Focusing on the happy side is for PR flacks. Uncovering the dirt is for real reporters.
#2 Posted by Nigel, CJR on Wed 21 Sep 2011 at 02:37 AM
I have been a subscriber to Positive News for some years now, simply for their focus on what positive things people all over the world are doing. I used to subscribe to ODE magazine for the same reason. These are islands of uplift and positivity in a world obsessed with fear, negativity , killing all stressful thoughts and actions. These publications keep me hopeful and happy. I am so grateful for them
Thanks for this article, and may there be many more of these publications, they are the antidotes to the "mainstream'" media.
#3 Posted by Jennifer Ire, CJR on Wed 21 Sep 2011 at 11:02 AM
Thank you Alysia Santo for your upbeat upbeat. Love it!
Kathleen Betts
Board of Directors
www.goodnewstoronto.ca
#4 Posted by Kathleen Betts, CJR on Sat 1 Oct 2011 at 08:04 AM
A response to Nigel's comment: I completely agree that the role of journalism is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. It is not our philosophy to shy away from covering stories that might offend the powers that be. My only point is that our only coverage shouldn't just be about violence, drugs and poverty when there is so much more to the community than that.
#5 Posted by Willa Seidenberg, CJR on Sun 2 Oct 2011 at 03:03 PM
There's also this good news agency project from Italy http://www.goodnewsagency.org
#6 Posted by Sandra Prüfer, CJR on Mon 3 Oct 2011 at 11:30 AM
A positive escape from the main stream journalism with a view to mitigate the injuring part of the trend.I have also become happy because during long years I
waded through first the vernacular journalism and later the English journalism here in India I did not find or even heard anything like this either from my guru, the teachers and the mentors during my student-days or from the social workers, NGO,s or the policy makers Thus, my congrats,
I am a master of journalism from BHU,a university here and a teacher of the same subject, I also teach spoken English.
#7 Posted by Amarnatha Mishra, CJR on Tue 4 Oct 2011 at 03:05 AM