Over the past week or so, the US economy took a major hit, the Environmental Protection Agency announced that it was no longer in the business of caring about the environment, and the only thing the internet can talk about is Sydney Sweeney. But here’s the thing: Even amid the constant deluge of news that alternates between the negative and the just silly, there’s another story unfolding. It’s quieter, slower, less flashy, but it’s real, and it matters. And that’s the story of progress.
We’re hardwired for negativity. That doesn’t mean we’re doomed to it.
Why focusing only on what’s broken blinds us to what’s fixable.
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Bryan Walsh is a senior editorial director at Vox overseeing the climate teams and the Unexplainable and The Gray Area podcasts. He is also the editor of Vox’s Future Perfect section and writes the Good News newsletter. He worked at Time magazine for 15 years as a foreign correspondent in Asia, a climate writer, and an international editor, and he wrote a book on existential risk.
That’s why a few months ago I launched Good News, Vox’s weekly newsletter dedicated not to ignoring our often difficult reality, but to placing it in the broader context it deserves. This past Monday, Good News got the Unexplainable treatment, as Vox’s excellent science podcast invited me on to discuss why, exactly, we find good news so elusive.
It’s not just the media’s bias — although, as I confessed to Unexplainable’s Meradith Hoddinott, that’s undeniably a part of it. After nearly 25 years in journalism, I’ve learned that the press is fundamentally a watchdog, conditioned to bark loudest when things go wrong. But there’s also a deeper reason: our own negativity bias. Humans are hardwired to focus on threats, an evolutionary adaptation that once kept us alive on the savannah but now leaves us doomscrolling through headlines.
In the Unexplainable episode, Meredith and I explored this psychological quirk, highlighting stories of genuine progress that usually slip under the radar. Like this one: despite fears about rising crime, the murder rate in the US is potentially on track to hit historic lows. And despite the worsening effects of climate change and the proliferation of billion-dollar disasters, fewer people globally died from extreme weather in the first half of 2025 than in any comparable period on record.
Why spotlight developments like these, which can feel like the opposite of news? Because focusing only on what’s broken can blind us to what’s fixable. Realistic optimism isn’t naïve; it’s necessary. It fuels the belief that problems, even enormous ones, are solvable, which in turn inspires action. And, as I’ve discovered writing the Good News newsletter, this optimism can act like armor, helping us face a challenging, sometimes frightening future with greater resilience.
It’s why Good News felt like a natural outgrowth of our work here at Future Perfect, where above all we want to capture an accurate view of the world as it is — the bad and the good. So, give the episode a listen — you’ll hear us break down the science of negativity and the underappreciated power of hope. And, of course, subscribe to Good News.
