Tim Murgatroyd

Is it just me who finds it hard to watch the news these days? Let alone watch a bulletin all the way through? There seem so many valid reasons NOT to keep abreast of world events.

First off, there’s something deep in human nature that prefers sugar-coated versions of reality to stark, uncomfortable truths.

I’m guilty of it and I suspect most other people are too. Personally, I’m the world’s greatest sucker for a happy ending in a film or book. Give me La La Land every time. And don’t spare the joyful reconciliation and romance when the titles fade.

Except that the endings of so many good people in our world – each with a unique heart and soul and loves and loyalties and sets of opinions – are all-too-often far from happy. And the place we are forced to witness and contemplate that grim reality is mostly through the news.

Still, there are plenty of distractions available. Shopping and sport and pubs and restaurants; family and friends and pets (hopefully in that order of importance, though I’ve known times when the pets come first).

Even that great narrower of a person’s worldview (if you allow it to dominate your life), namely, jobs and careers.

All can distract us from what’s going on beyond our city. Sometimes York feels like an island of civilization in a raging ocean of human woe. What’s it to do with me?, you’re tempted to ask. And sometimes the connections aren’t obvious.

But then you realise ill winds blowing through your TV screen are heading your way after all.

Think of the world economic crisis in 2008 that has triggered so many years of stagnant wages for all but the very rich.

Not to mention cuts in beloved public services that I, for one, took for granted.

York Press:

Iraqi security forces on the outskirts of Mosul. The news has become so grim it is hard to watch these days, says Tim Murgatroyd. Photo: AP/ Mohammed Saad

Or the war in Iraq that fuelled Islamic fundamentalism and ultimately, step by tragic step, led to appalling terrorist attacks and yet more wars all over the Middle East.

No man is an island, that’s for sure. In the case of Great Britain, you might say no island is an island. Like it or not we are part of a global economy and a world political system of baffling complexity.

Perhaps the problem is something to do with the content and style of the news itself.

Amidst the dramatic music and flashing graphics you can’t help feeling someone is trying to manipulate you for dubious ends.

If that sounds overly cynical check out the annual trust barometer survey by international PR firm Edelman.

They have released a UK-only supplement which shows a huge drop in levels of trust in the media over the last 12 months from 36 per cent in 2016 to 24 per cent.

The same survey found that the powerful interest groups who control and feed the news are just as distrusted by the British public.

Trust in government fell from 36 per cent at the start of last year to 26 per cent by the start of 2017; trust in businesses fell from 46 per cent to 33 per cent (after the BHS scandal who can blame us) and even our faith in charities collapsed from 50 per cent to 32 per cent.

Maybe that’s why we find it hard to watch BBC and commercial television’s version of reality. We simply don’t trust news organisations – or much else, any more.

Whatever the reason, the world will keep on spinning.

Events likely to affect the happiness and welfare of ourselves and our families will keep on happening.

The question we’re faced with is whether ignorance is a kind of temporary bliss or a sure route to allow the powerful to dig a collective abyss for us all.

So I’m going to stick to my resolution for 2017 to keep watching the news, even if I feel inclined to empty my son’s Nerf gun and a volley of ping pong balls at the screen.

Only, hang on, where have those DVDs of Love Actually and It’s A Wonderful Life gone?