THERE is a journalistic myth which insists that ‘bad news sells’. Like most myths, there is a grain of truth in it. But as anyone who works in the media will tell you, readers will take only so much. An unrelenting diet of bad news turns people off.
With the advent of 24-hour news and the relentless tide on social media, psychologists have opened up a whole new field – the study of information overload and mental illness. Another phenomenon is the increasing tendency for people to switch off the news completely.
In publications such as The Irish News, editors are well aware of this ‘bad news syndrome’. Bad news is offset with other stories that give an insight into the broader human condition. Newspapers are better for your mental health than Twitter/X.
Read more:
Patricia Mac Bride: Gaza horrors show truth is indeed the first casualty of war
Chris Donnelly: Peace can never be built on oppression and injustice
News has been my job for the past 40 years. I don’t have the option of turning things off. But I have to admit that in recent years my instinct has been to run away from the action, rather than towards it.
The events being played out in the Middle East in recent weeks have been a test of my mettle. I have witnessed scenes in the press, on television and on social media that have made me sick to the core.
Like you, I have seen the suffering of Israelis slaughtered at the hands of Hamas. And I have witnessed the horror visited on Palestinians by an Israeli government which has massively overstepped the mark in responding to Hamas.
Making sense of it all, for me at least, has not been easy. I am not on the ground, nor am I in full possession of the facts. I know that in war ‘truth’ is the first casualty. Both sides are involved in propaganda. I know too that most of the reporting we see comes from western media who are based in Israel. The west’s eye-view cannot be trusted when it comes to the Middle East.
But, propaganda or not, I know innocent people are dead and dying, that Gaza is besieged, that bombs and bullets do not discriminate between members of Hamas and ordinary men and women.
History tells me that the Jewish people have suffered immeasurably down the ages – mostly at the hands of so-called Christians. The Holocaust is a stain on humanity which will never be erased. The Jews, for so long stateless, have surely earned the right to have a place they can call home.
But – there is always a but – that right is also absolute for Palestinians, as is the right of Arabs in Israel to be treated as equal citizens. It is not anti-Semitic to criticise the behaviour of successive Israeli governments who have demonised Palestinians, who have occupied lands beyond agreed borders, and who have encouraged religious zealots to create illegal settlements.
Science tells us that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. It does not justify the violence of Hamas to say that hawks like Benjamin Netanyahu – who have risen to power because of a deeply-divided electorate – have played into the hands of those who want to see Israel wiped off the face of the earth.
We should remember that some of the fiercest critics of Netanyahu and his assault on Gaza are in Israel itself. Many brave Israelis have condemned the actions of his government. This is not about Jews and Arabs. It is an issue of war or peace.
Ultimately the only solution to the Palestine-Israel issue is accommodation. Allowing Netanyahu to continue on his current course fatally undermines the search for peace. The refusal of the United States and Britain to push for an immediate ceasefire is both incomprehensible and immoral.
An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. War has failed, it is time we gave peace a chance. And, however bad the news, we must not turn away from it. Despots use our ignorance to get away with murder.
