We received this polite request from one of our readers today:

Dear Crikey,

Please publish some good news. You’re making my girlfriend sad.

Thanks.

Ben

Zoe Williams from The Guardian agrees. She writes of a news cycle on crack:

“There is such an abundance of news that it’s torpedoed the news agenda. How do you make an agenda, when everything is as important as everything else? There is just too much news …

“There is also a sense of headspin, of being unable to digest one tragedy before another happens.”

The effect, says Williams, “is a news twilight, where you can’t even be sure what has been confirmed and what hasn’t”.

When Amy Winehouse’s death registers as item item No.5 on the Sunday night news, something’s up. But as Williams writes, try to imagine the “teeth-grinding frustration of the director of UNICEF, David Bull, who took out full-page adverts in the UK national press last week to say: ‘I am writing for your support in moving the news agenda . The story about phone hacking does matter, but there’s another, far bigger and vital story that’s going unreported’.”

Today in Crikey, Rafiq Copeland reports from the epicentre of African relief efforts in Dadaab. As if widespread and devastating famine wasn’t enough, he writes:

“… new arrivals to Dadaab that I have spoken with also report al Shabaab preventing people from fleeing the region. Refugees tell stories of r-pe, mutilation with bayonets and other brutalities committed at the hands of the militants. It’s likely much of this violence is as much banditry born out of chaos as it is an organised campaign.”

The world is indeed in chaos. Sorry, Ben’s girlfriend.