Director, Commonwealth Policy Center

How do you handle bad news?  More specifically, how do you handle negative news?  According to a recent study at Harvard University in the first 100 days of Donald Trump's presidency, 80% of the stories in the mainstream media were negative.  Harvard professor Thomas Patterson says this sets a new standard for negative reporting. This means if you’re going to remain upbeat about the state of our country you’ll need to practice discernment when getting your news.  This means you'll have to consider the source and the mainstream press is decidedly liberal. Second, consider how you spread the news.  The news may have been delivered to you with a negative tone, but that doesn’t mean you need to be negative. In fact, you can set the tone when you discuss the news with others.