Shelley Seale is a journalist, content creator, award-winning writer, author, publication designer, editor and communications professional. She can be reached at www.shelleyseale.com. and Twitter
What’s happening:
More than two out of three Americans report feeling exhausted by the news. The emotional burden of anxiety leads to learned helplessness, which impacts civic engagement and readership. Sift was created as a response to that — a sort of “news therapy” that wants to help readers be informed without these negative feelings, but instead to feel empowered.
Why it matters:
It’s no secret that there’s a deepening political divide, and people often feel overwhelmed by the news ecosystem. Sift believes that the media industry is trapped in a broken advertising model that incentivises the wrong things; and social media sharing simply bolsters confirmation bias. The Sift app was launched as an experiment to help with this.
