Instant gratification is the norm. We stream movies on Netflix, we get 2-day shipping thanks to Amazon Prime, and when there’s a coup taking place in Turkey, our friends on Twitter make sure we know about it within minutes.

Netflix, Amazon, and Twitter are wonderful services. But our demand as consumers for more and more information delivered at faster and faster rates has brought about the 24-hour news outlets we have today.

What sells? Doom and gloom. That’s strange. We live amidst unprecedented prosperity. Why is this not news?

Instead of accepting these dreary reports as conventions, perhaps it’s better for us to ask ourselves, is the world really so hateful, violent, and full of graft as CNN and Fox News would have us believe? Why are these the stories that are being fed to us? Are we maybe a bit too hungry for them? How should we navigate the news in this era of instant gratification?

Read on to find the answers to these questions.

Fill out the form below to get your own free, downloadable copy of FEE’s Essential Guide to Navigating the News!