Don’t let the news get you down – things will get better, they always do | Simon Jenkins

We live longer, with better access to water, power and health services and less violence. Hope lies in these statistics, not in the horror of headlines

Hope is a slave to news; we should never forget it. And news has always been bad. Its currency is unspeakable horror, with hatred and doom darkening every horizon. News defies us to peer through the gloom and ever see light ahead.

The answer lies not in downgrading hope, it lies in downgrading news. For it is not what it purports to be – the rea...