A strange thing happens when you write about something going right. People take notice. They read to the end. They share it with their friends. They create rare pools of wellbeing on social media. They write to thank you.
Eighteen months ago, the Guardian launched a pilot project to see how readers would respond if we deliberately sought out the good things happening in the world.
More than 150 pieces of journalism later – in which we have examined the relative merits of everything from dog turds to ketamine, the blockchain to microhouses, and gardening to exoskeletons – we have proof of concept.
Reader numbers for this kind of journalism have proven remarkably robust throughout the project, with almost one in 10 readers on average sharing stories on social media.
News doesn’t have to be bad. The planet is complex. Away from the horror and conflict, the shouting and the skulduggery, away from the tragedy, disaster and zero-sum misanthropy, there is a wide world of answers and improvements, of win-win and mutual support, of selflessness and curiosity, of movements and innovations.
And when you write about it, people tend to respond positively. They do so because while audiences have always been riveted by bad news (it serves as both an early warning system and a reassurance about the comfort of their own lives), they are tired of the avalanche of awfulness. They are switching off.
That is a bad thing. If people just shrug at news because they feel there is little they can do, nothing will change.
Journalists in the US, Europe and the UK are waking up to this by publishing what is variously described as constructive journalism, solutions journalism or, somewhat misleadingly, positive news.
Now the Guardian is deepening its commitment to this type of work. Our new series, The Upside, launched this week with support from the Skoll foundation and a sprightly determination to show readers all of humanity, not just the bad bits.
This does not mean we will reduce our efforts to uncover wrongdoing, to hold the powerful to account. It does mean that, in addition, we will be looking for pioneers, trailblazers, best practice, unsung heroes, ideas that work, ideas that might, innovations whose time might have come.
As our editor-in-chief, Katharine Viner, promised in a speech on the future of the Guardian recently, “we will develop ideas that help improve the world, not just critique it. Despair is just another form of denial. People long to feel hopeful again – and young people, especially, yearn to feel the hope that previous generations once had.”
It is something our readers and members consistently ask for. Our request this week for ideas from readers resulted in more than 1,000 responses and suggestions from more than two dozen countries.
“You are on the right track - we need more articles like this,” said Marti Mahoney of Albuquerque, in response to Jon Henley’s article on why Finland always seems to have answers to modern social problems.
“More about kindness, discoveries and innovations that are improving society, please,” wrote Lorraine Simpson, from Edinburgh. “Some positive reflections on data trends too; for example I read yesterday that war and violence have decreased across the globe over the past century, which was a pleasant surprise.”
Nick Marchant, from Dublin, wrote in: “I really support your intention to publish positive stories, I’ve been looking for it for a long time. I find a lot of news coverage very negative, and it makes me switch off various issues.”
“Recently I have been thinking about the psychological aspect of being bombarded by negative news stories and although they are important I feel that without optimistic news stories to contrast them you leave readers feeling punch-drunk and depressed about the world,” Simon Taylor wrote.
“I understand there are some positive news stories on the Guardian site but it would be brilliant to have a dedicated section for moments of ‘oh god show me something to be happy about!’”
Perhaps curious is a better word than happy. Not everything we cover will necessarily change the world for the better, but it will offer the promise of doing so.There are some ground rules. We won’t jump at every piece of puff and PR that comes our way. We will set a high bar, looking for things that appear replicable, robust and confront the big challenges of our times – the environment, health (particularly mental), atomised communities, flagging democracy, gender discrimination and technology.
We will attempt to find the communities trying to solve some of these problems and, ideally, this will take us to places we rarely visit, broadening our reach and our understanding.
And we are encouraging readers to take part. Let us know what you want to see from this series, where you see the hope. What are the ideas that, with a little bit of mainstreaming, could bring us turning points?
Write to us at theupside@theguardian.com.
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