Joey Borrello

My name is Joey Borrello. I’m a former student of Journalism at the University of Alabama but I left because of how disappointed I was with the entire field. I wanted to tell people about the most interesting and intriguing stories of the world and experience more of it for myself. I wanted to share stories with people that would give them a more complete and enriching view on life and make them better citizens. Instead, my professors told me to focus on the business aspect of journalism and learn how to cover stories that kept people engaged. That usually meant stories that upset people or made them care about very shallow things. I even found myself feeling angry and afraid after reading the news rather than feeling informed like I wanted to. Everyone told me “That’s just how it is” but I still refuse to believe that.

After one long semester I dropped out of school to go work abroad and see the world for myself. Over the next two years I lived in four different countries and saw every kind of person I think there is. During that time, I made the realization that even though most people are very similar at their core, we can easily divide ourselves up and one of the easiest ways to divide people up is through the media. I saw in these various countries, how easily people’s minds are steered by the news telling them how to think and who they shouldn’t like. When I came back home, I saw how toxic our own news had become and how it was affecting people, including me. No matter how right or left the news was, I always found that it made me miserable and barely informed after reading it and it made me want to shut it off completely. I understood perfectly why many people can’t stand watching the news and why there is so much tension between people who watch different news channels. They are getting different slices of reality that make it seem like the people who get the other slice are immoral and wrong. They are not full of useful information or things we need to know. It’s just negativity with a few stories thrown in. 

This website is my response to this problem. I’ve tried to make the website that I wish existed when I feel exhausted by the news. One that tries to inform people without damaging their mental health and society in the process. I try to write with as little opinion and emotion as possible so the stories are only stories and the readers can form their own opinions about them. I believe that when we naturally form our own opinions instead of only listening to one of many fighting political teams, hating each other based on our ideas becomes much harder. My hope is that the Healthy News makes my readers a little more interested in the world and a little less disdainful of people who disagree with them.