Wednesday March 6

“Optimism doesn’t wait on facts. It deals with prospects. Pessimism is a waste of time.”

- Norman Cousins

I look forward to our dialogue at Vendome each Wednesday, increasingly aware how the combination of lively social interaction and complex mental activity is benefiting my health, notably my cognitive function. It starts at 6 PM this Wednesday March 6.

Most of the major problems we face in the world today have arisen or been exacerbated by a lack of imagination. Suicidal depression, world wars, you name it. Those are the shadows. When used wisely, imagination generates sunshine, especially when it’s done in collaboration.

Accordingly, my contribution to the dialogue this coming Wednesday is about a fairly recent development in journalism, variously referred to as solutions journalism or constructive journalism or positive news.

The following podcast on the rise of solutions journalism is perhaps the most brilliantly organized and delivered panel presentation I have ever heard. One of the participants, for example, describes how in the early 1990s as a journalist for BBC, he planned to give a talk on constructive journalism and was told he would be fired if he gave the talk. He gave the talk anyway. VERY interesting what happened next.

The podcast is well worth a listen.

https://soundcloud.com/the_rsa/how-the-news-can-change-our-world

Well worth a look is this website on a Positive News Magazine

https://www.positive.news/magazine/

and this one on a solutions journalism initiative of the New York Times.

https://www.nytimes.com/column/fixes

There’s a lot more on this including recent books. My contribution for this Wednesday is just to introduce the concept.

Arthur