End obsession with 'bad news', Pope tells media

Vatican City, Jan 24 (IANS/AKI) Pope Francis on Tuesday called on the world's media to offer people more "good news" and quell anxiety, growing fear and pessimism fuelled by an obsession with "bad news".

"Let us offer the men and women of our time stories marked by the logic of 'good news'," Francis tweeted on the Catholic Church's 50th World Communications Day.

"I am convinced that we have to break the vicious circle of anxiety and stem the spiral of fear resulting from a constant focus on 'bad news' (wars, terrorism, scandals and all sorts of human failure)," he said earlier in an address to mark World Communications Day.

Francis urged all those who were "grinding out" information each day in their jobs or personal lives to strive for "constructive forms of communication that reject prejudice towards others.

"This has nothing to do with spreading misinformation that would ignore the tragedy of human suffering, nor is it about a naive optimism blind to the scandal of evil," Francis underlined.

"Rather, I propose that all of us work at overcoming that feeling of growing discontent and resignation that can at times generate apathy, fear or the idea that evil has no limits," he said.

--IANS/AKI

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