A U.S. kid who thinks today's news is too depressing, has set up his own online television empire that specializes in all that is good in the world.

He is Max Jones, a 12-year-old schoolboy from Florida. His Weekend News Today at www.hnheadlines.com garners up to 5,000 hits a day and has attracted unpaid teen interns from across the globe to write and edit video and written content.

Media research shows that people are growing weary of some western media that are over enthusiastic about reporting bad news.

In 2006, BBC conducted an online survey on happiness index of the British. It showed that people felt "extremely awful" about too much negative coverage posing terror and anxiety. For instance, media tend to dramatize crime and government negligence, ridicule political figures, and exaggerate crisis such as global warming.

According to a similar survey by Yahoo, people in U.S. were also tired of negative news. "Media portrays a collapsing world full of diseases, wars and worsening environment," a netizen said, "it changes a happy person into a depressed one." Some people said they no longer read the news.

Someone questioned: "Where is the news concerning the heros around us?"

Researchers from Ohio State University discovered that the depressed hardly realize the goodness in life. Meanwhile, people who are tired of the bombardment of bad news hope for some changes in media.

Some who participated in BBC's survey advocated "restricting media's reports on negative news", and "setting the proportion of media's positive and negative news. Any media whose negative news exceeds the proportion will be fined."

In reality, someone have already started their mission of spreading the goodness in life.

Earlier in 1993 in UK, Shanna Barros, a retired actress, established a newspaper called "Positive News". It specialized in "stories of people striving for better life". Now, the paper is published in UK and U.S., and its agencies have been established in Spain and Argentina.

In U.S., apart from Max Jones' "Weekend News Today", a news website called "Good News Gazette" is more professional with more abundant content.

"There is a lot of good news in the world. News isn't exclusively for terrorism, wars and economic downturn," said a senior media personnel from UK. "Some new media are endeavoring to promote inspiring news which will make people feel better in life."

By People's Daily Online