If you want to get depressed every morning, tune in to Today on BBC Radio 4. There you will hear an unremittingly grim view of the world - a diet of political wickedness, terrorism, global warming, looming recession and other catastrophes. Sadly, John Humphries and fellow presenters tend to set the day's agenda and tone for much of Britain's media industry. According to them it seems as if everything in the modern world is terrible, and getting steadily worse.

Journalists like to see themselves as questioning and sceptical. A colleague of mine says the correct words are "cynical and negative". While editors get defensive if you ask them why they principally broadcast or print bad news, they can give precious few examples of uplifting, cheerful or generous leading items. No doubt the rise of digital rivals means the traditional news media are under much more competitive pressure to land scoops - which encourages hype about financial disasters, food scares, crime and all the rest. And the explosion of media means there is a feeding frenzy when any new row, scandal or crisis erupts. But is this a healthy state of affairs?