While the problems around us all seem to pile up we are also unable to trust the information we need to address them. Just from a Canadian perspective we are inundated with a life torn in different directions by high inflation, a housing crisis, historically low wages, crippled social services and unchecked climate change, to name a few. Almost everything a person needs to survive is being strained. It’s all well and good to have access to well-vetted and contextualized information, but when you’re up against the wall of survival, no one has the time, energy or ability to take risks to act when acting is the very foundation of a democracy.

The mental health toll of news consumption creates more than individual suffering. Research shows consumption of negative news is associated with anxiety, depression, and PTSD, even for those not directly involved in reported events^[1]. This leads to a cascade of protective responses: news avoidance, apathy, and fatigue. Between 2019 and 2024 alone, news avoidance jumped from 32 percent to 39 percent globally^[2]. The outcome is antithetical to journalism’s purpose—bad news creates passivity rather than motivation to act^[3]. When staying informed requires enduring psychological harm, and turning away leaves us vulnerable to misinformation, we face a democratic crisis where neither option serves the public good.

In a situation where people are news avoidant, are shown a world that is worse than it is, but are still hard-wired to be informed, the mental health impacts of the news are directly connected to how well a society is informed and, in turn, how successful it is at governing itself. What is the purpose of journalism? While I appreciate the importance of journalism as a watchdog, its existence as a means of informing the public, as framed by Kovach and Rosenstiel, is where its true purpose lies, but given the mental health impact it has on people is it failing to live up to its full potential? If we’re trying to stay informed to make informed decisions, then we should be taking better care of how that information is being transferred. From this perspective, “what might make a good copy based on news values is not the same as what is likely to trigger positive action to address such problems”^[3]. If the news is unmotivating, and stressful and reinforces feelings of helplessness, then is it achieving its goals at all?

Now it should be said that journalism’s democratic connections in the West do a disservice to journalism as a whole. Journalism is more than just upholding the function of democracies, but also the struggles of all people, especially in places where freedoms are hindered. Josephi enlightened me to approach journalism “not in terms of media systems but instead using journalism practice as the main frame of reference, as this allows for an appreciation of journalism beyond the confines of western democratic countries”^[4]. Continuing to point out that “it is not the political form of democracy that is essential to journalism, but the freedom of expression and relative journalistic autonomy afforded to media workers”^[4].

Trust is similarly important for journalism to succeed, but what happens when it’s not? A recent Privy Council Office poll found that only 32.5 percent of Canadians trust mainstream media^[5]. The lack of trust in news, which can lead to news avoidance, can also lead to reduced involvement within a democratic society, which correlates to lower trust in government institutions^[5]. I think nothing has been more poignant in dismantling trust in journalism than the genocide in Gaza. While brave journalists on the ground in Gaza shared images on social media, media outlets in our own country, and through the Western world, seem to be watching something else.

Trust in the media is at an all-time low in Canada and other parts of the world. Between 2016 and 2024 people’s overall trust in the news dropped from 55 percent to 39 percent in Canada, and stands at 40 percent globally^[2]. The Reuters Institute Digital News Report of 2024 points to the importance of trust for revenue, but more importantly that “years of research has documented how people who trust the news less are less likely to believe in the information it presents and learn from it”^[2]. Trust is also impacted by a number of factors, including people’s political leaning, journalistic standards, freedom from bias and fair representation, but the negativity of news plays an important role.

Nobel Prize winner and journalist, Maria Ressa, has called 2024 “the last two minutes of democracy”^[6], referring to the large number of significant elections happening. In 2024, 64 countries have elections, or 49 percent of those in the world who are eligible to vote^[7]. What we’re looking at is a time when trust is low, and truth bends to different realities. I attended a talk she gave at McGill in 2022 where she reiterated that, “Without facts, you can’t have truth. Without truth, you can’t have trust. Without this, you have no shared reality, you don’t have democracy. You cannot solve any problems globally”^[8]. The same warning was given by Hannah Arendt, who famously said that “the ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction and the distinction between true and false no longer exist”^[9]. It’s not simply that being collectively less informed impacts our ability to make informed decisions and self-govern, it’s the threat of the alternative when we lose a shared reality.

Beyond mental health is the growing prevalence of disinformation, algorithmic politics and polarisation, things we should all be very concerned about if we’re also looking to make impactful changes to address some of the most challenging issues of our time without somehow managing to do the opposite.

What’s abundantly clear is we need to not only trust information and ensure people are free to produce it and share it, but we also should not be harmed by it. What does that look like and how do we get there?

Maria Ressa’s warning about losing shared reality isn’t abstract—it’s already happening. As trust declines and people tune out, the gaps between our individual realities widen. Without addressing these fractures, we won’t just struggle to solve problems collectively. We’ll lose the ability to even agree on what the problems are.

The question of what to do is complex, but not hopeless. We need imagination to see beyond the current system. User-controlled AI assistants that help navigate information without corporate bias. Public information systems that are transparent and accountable. Policy frameworks that contain the worst excesses of algorithmic manipulation. These aren’t silver bullets, but they’re starting points for a different relationship with information—one where staying informed doesn’t require surrendering your mental health or your agency.

This isn’t just about fixing journalism or regulating tech platforms. It’s about recognizing that the tools we use to understand the world shape the world we’re capable of building. We’ve accepted harm as the cost of being informed for too long. The work ahead is to imagine—and then build—systems that treat human well-being as foundational, not incidental, to an informed society. That future is possible, but only if we’re willing to demand it.

This essay is adapted from my MA thesis examining the intersection of journalism, mental health, democratic participation and artificial intelligence.  

References

1. Bauman, S., & Rivers, I. (2023). Mental health in the digital age: Grave dangers, great promise. Palgrave Macmillan. 
2. Newman, N., Fletcher, R., Robertson, C. T., Arguedas, A. R., & Nielsen, R. K. (2024). Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2024. Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism.   
3. Baden, C., McIntyre, K., & Homberg, M. (2019). From negativity to constructive journalism: The potential of positive news. Journalism Studies, 20(13), 1940–1959.  
4. Josephi, B. (2013). How much democracy does journalism need? Journalism, 14(4), 474–489.  
5. Akin, D. (2023, April 5). Less than 33% of Canadians trust mainstream media: Federal government internal poll. Global News. https://globalnews.ca/news/9602409/trust-mainstream-media-canada-poll/  
6. Ressa, M. (2023). Nobel lecture. NobelPrize.org. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/2021/ressa/lecture/ 
7. Edelman. (2024). Edelman Trust Barometer 2024. Edelman. 
8. Ressa, M. (2022, April 7). We’re all being manipulated the same way. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/04/maria-ressa-disinformation-manipulation/629483/ 
9. Arendt, H. (1951). The origins of totalitarianism. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.