Here are the best things I read this week.

Just a friendly reminder that there is media that can make you feel good, too.

I promise never to e-mail you anything like this. I just keep a couple of these in my screenshots folder because Fox has had some ridiculous headlines that no one actually cared about.

Thanks again for being here. As part of my weekly installments, I made a promise to gather a few things for you to read (other than my newsletter) on a weekly basis to make you feel good. Why am I doing this?

For starters, the common trope around media for a long time now has been something to the effect of “Everything The News talks about is BAD.” That got immeasurably worse with the pandemic. Blend this in with the increasing distrust in media as a whole, and you’ve got, well, a pretty unappetizing smoothie for legacy news, to say the least.

I’m not here to defend individual news outlets. Hell, I might even criticize them from time to time. Instead my aim is to show you that there are great stories out there. I’m even saving you the trouble of looking for them and finding them for you, curating them right here in the middle of the week, every week.

It’s true these stories are few and far between. The gross, depressing, and even anxiety-inducing stuff sells. That’s the unfortunate media landscape we’re in. My argument? The feel-good stuff should sell too.

Here are the best stories I read this week: FYI, One is visually appealing, something refreshing in a world full of reused photos. Another is informative and helpful for dealing with stress. Another is an interesting fact about an emerging industry that everyone can celebrate. And finally, the last piece is one that made me make an immediate change to my habits, which is pretty much all you need to know about that article.