DAVID BYRNE Launches Good News Magazine

27 August 2019

David Byrne launched an online magazine called Reasons to Be Cheerful with the aim of providing good news to readers as a form of “remedy” and “therapy” for the negative tendencies of many current outlets.

Subtitled “Stories of Solving,” the opening edition includes six articles Byrne wrote himself, including “India’s Tiny, Amazing Art Hub,” “Doing the Right Thing Is Good for Business” and “Divest!”

The latter piece discussed the future of nuclear power, with a counter article by Brian Eno, “The Necessity of Nuclear.”

In an introductory video, Byrne described the project as “part magazine, part therapy session, part blueprint for a better world.” He said he hoped to highlight “smart, proven, replicable solutions to the world’s most pressing problems. ... What if we started a project and brought some of those reasons to be cheerful into sharper focus?”

You can watch a video below.

“It often seems as if the world is going straight to hell,” Byrne said in a an accompanying statement.

“I wake up in the morning, I look at the paper and I say to myself, ‘Oh no!’ Often I’m depressed for half the day. I imagine some of you feel the same. … Recently, I realized this isn’t helping. Nothing changes when you’re numb. So, as a kind of remedy, and possibly as a kind of therapy, I started collecting good news. Not schmaltzy, feel-good news, but stuff that reminded me, ‘Hey, there’s positive stuff going on! People are solving problems and it’s making a difference!’ I began telling others about what I’d found.”