The cover image of this collection, a grumpy soda can presenting a falling sales chart. The full version and the story behind it appear further down.
The Happy Broadcast is an illustrated good-news project created by Italian artist Mauro Gatti. Each post pairs a cheerful character drawn in simple lines on a bright background with a short headline about something that went right in the world, from protected tigers to cleaner air. Gatti told My Modern Met that he wanted “to create something positive as an anti-venom to the vitriolic rhetoric that pervades our media.”
Below are 35 of his illustrations from 2018 and the years just before it. Because good-news headlines are often simplified, each one comes with a short note on the real story behind it and, where it matters, what happened next.
Who is Mauro Gatti?
Gatti was born in Brescia, Italy, in 1978. In Milan he founded the creative agency Mutado, which he later sold, and he then moved to Los Angeles. According to an interview with the Italian news site Open in January 2019, he started The Happy Broadcast on Instagram to share free positive news and to push back against a culture of hate and fear. He chooses stories about the environment, human rights, health and culture, preferring international news over very local items.
The project grew well beyond Instagram. Its illustrations were widely shared during difficult news periods, and Gatti later published a book, The Happy Broadcast: How to Stay Positive, Take Action and Make the World a Better Place.
Why good news deserves a second look
Psychologists often point out that people pay more attention to threats than to improvements, which is one reason news feeds can feel relentlessly bleak. Projects like The Happy Broadcast are a counterweight. The best way to enjoy them, though, is with a little curiosity: a headline captures one moment, while the policy, invention or animal population behind it keeps changing. Some of the stories below turned out even better than expected; others ran into problems.
35 illustrated stories, with the facts behind them
France was widely reported as the first country to ban large supermarkets from throwing away or destroying unsold edible food. The 2016 law requires them to donate it to charities instead, and other countries have since debated similar rules.
A turtle happily snacking on a six-pack ring. In 2016 Saltwater Brewery in Florida made headlines with edible, biodegradable six-pack rings made partly from brewing by-products; it was a promising prototype rather than a solution to ocean plastic, but it drew attention to how dangerous ordinary plastic rings are for wildlife.
A bee waving the French flag. France's 2016 biodiversity law banned neonicotinoid pesticides, which have been linked to harm in bees, with the ban taking effect in September 2018, ahead of a narrower EU-wide restriction on three of these chemicals the same year. The ban later came under pressure from sugar beet growers.
Scotland won wide praise for making free sanitary products available, first through a pilot for people on low incomes and then, from 2018, in schools, colleges and universities. In 2020 the Scottish Parliament went further and passed a law guaranteeing free access to period products for anyone who needs them.
Nepal's wild tiger count rose from roughly 120 in 2009 to around 235 in 2018, nearly doubling in under a decade. Nepal was one of the countries that had pledged at a 2010 summit to double wild tiger numbers by 2022.
A friendly drone carrying a first-aid box. In 2016 Rwanda began using drones operated by the company Zipline to deliver blood to rural clinics, with health workers ordering supplies by text message; the service later expanded to other countries.
A dog judge with a wig and gavel. In 2018 a South Korean city court ruled against a dog farmer for killing dogs for meat, a decision animal welfare groups called a landmark. The wider fight continued for years, until South Korea passed a law in 2024 to phase out the dog meat industry.
A rabbit receiving a lipstick kiss instead of a test. In 2018 California became the first US state to pass a law banning the sale of most cosmetics newly tested on animals, which took effect in 2020.
Two smiling saplings. In July 2017 volunteers in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh were reported to have planted around 66 million saplings in 12 hours. The total was announced by the state government; independent confirmation of the record and of how many trees survived is harder to find.
A panda raising a glass. In 2016 the IUCN moved the giant panda from endangered to vulnerable, thanks to decades of habitat protection in China. The planned Giant Panda National Park, joining dozens of reserves into an area about three times the size of Yellowstone, was formally established in the early 2020s.
An elephant and a lion outside an empty circus tent. Portugal's parliament passed a law in 2018 phasing out wild animals in circuses over six years, part of a wider European trend away from animal acts.
A dog snoozing while fireworks burst silently above it. The Italian town of Collecchio, near Parma, was reported in 2015 to have introduced a rule requiring quiet fireworks to spare pets and wildlife the stress of loud bangs.
A delighted pink character with hearts. The American Cancer Society reported that US breast cancer death rates fell by about 39 percent between 1989 and 2015, which it estimated had averted around 322,600 deaths, thanks to earlier detection and better treatment.
The full version of the cover image. US soft drink sales by volume had been falling for over a decade by the time this was drawn, as consumers switched to water and other drinks; sugar taxes in several cities were part of the conversation, though their exact role is still studied.
A woman at the wheel with a child in the back seat. Saudi Arabia lifted its ban on women driving on 24 June 2018, following a royal decree of September 2017, after years of campaigning by Saudi women activists, several of whom were detained around the same time.
A dolphin dropping a bottle into a recycling bin. The Ocean Cleanup, founded by Dutch inventor Boyan Slat in 2013, predicted that a fleet of its systems could remove half of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in five years. Its first system, launched in 2018, ran into problems and broke apart, and the project has since redesigned its technology several times.
A prison turned into a cosy home. The Netherlands has one of the lowest incarceration rates in Europe, and with falling prisoner numbers it closed a number of prisons, some of which were reused to house asylum seekers and refugees.
A fox giving a peace sign. Norway announced in 2018 that it would end fur farming, with the ban on mink and fox farms taking full effect in 2025. Several European countries had already banned fur farming by then.
A bee riding an upward arrow. A 2017 US Department of Agriculture survey reported a rise in the number of honeybee colonies after years of heavy losses. Beekeepers replace lost colonies each year, so colony counts do not mean the threats to bees have gone away.
A rat holding a stop sign. The Belgian charity APOPO trains African giant pouched rats to sniff out landmines; the rats are too light to set off pressure mines. Reports at the time linked mine clearance in southern Africa to safer routes for elephants; that specific link is not confirmed by APOPO's main description of its work.
A crab lifting a trainer. Adidas said it sold more than a million pairs of shoes made with recycled ocean plastic from its partnership with the environmental group Parley for the Oceans in 2017, and set higher targets afterwards.
A tearful ozone hole shrinking on a timeline. NASA reported that the 2017 Antarctic ozone hole was the smallest since 1988, helped by warm stratospheric conditions. The long-term recovery is credited to the 1987 Montreal Protocol, which phased out ozone-damaging chemicals.
A kidney wearing mouse ears. In 2017 a father from New York wore a T-shirt reading in need of kidney on a family trip to Disney World; a stranger saw it, got tested and turned out to be a match, and the transplant went ahead.
A falling cigarette graph. According to the World Health Organization, the share of people who smoke has been declining globally for years, and smoking rates among women are lower than among men in most countries. Tobacco still kills millions each year, so the trend is good news rather than a finished story.
A smiling figure next to a money bag. When IKEA founder Ingvar Kamprad died in January 2018, reports said his will left half his estate to projects in Norrland, the sparsely populated north of Sweden. The 23 billion dollar figure circulated online was an estimate of his wealth rather than the value of the bequest, so treat that number with caution.
Julia, the Sesame Street Muppet with autism, first appeared online in 2015 and joined the television show in April 2017. She was created to help children understand autism, and her arrival was praised for showing autistic girls, who are often diagnosed later than boys.
An assault-style rifle with a knot in its barrel. After the February 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida, Dick's Sporting Goods stopped selling assault-style rifles and high-capacity magazines and raised the minimum age for gun purchases at its stores to 21.
A tree pushing baby trees in a pram. A study published in Nature in 2018 found that global tree cover had increased between 1982 and 2016, largely through plantations and natural regrowth in some regions, even as tropical forests continued to be lost.
A girl sitting on a happy book. Global literacy has risen steadily over generations, and today the large majority of adults worldwide can read and write; young people are more likely to be literate than older generations.
A cheerful red cross in a turban. India launched Ayushman Bharat, its national health protection scheme, on 23 September 2018. It aims to cover about 500 million people with hospital insurance of up to 5 lakh rupees per family per year, often described as the largest government-funded health programme in the world.
A goat firefighter. After deadly wildfires in 2017, Portugal promoted the use of grazing goat herds to clear brush that fuels fires, paying shepherds to keep vegetation down in fire-prone areas.
A grumpy plastic straw being shown the door. In 2018 Buckingham Palace announced it was phasing out plastic straws, and the city of Malibu in California banned single-use plastic straws; many countries and companies followed with their own restrictions.
Planet Earth sunbathing. Global solar power capacity grew rapidly in 2017, with a record of nearly 100 gigawatts added in a single year, more than any other power source.
A beer bottle behind a no sign. Iceland is often cited for its turnaround in teenage drinking: in the late 1990s Icelandic teens were among the heaviest drinkers in Europe, but after a national prevention programme built on curfews, parental involvement and organised sport, youth drinking fell to among the lowest levels.
A loaf pouring beer. Brewers have revived the old idea of brewing with surplus bread: London's Toast Ale, launched in 2016, uses leftover bread from bakeries and sandwich makers, and similar projects have appeared in other European cities, including Vienna.
What this collection tells us
Looking back, many of these stories have held up well. Saudi women now drive, India's health insurance scheme exists, Julia is part of Sesame Street, and giant pandas remain classed as vulnerable rather than endangered. Others are reminders that progress is uneven: the Ocean Cleanup's first system failed at sea, and pesticide bans and fur bans faced pushback and long phase-in periods.
That mix is exactly why the illustrations are worth sharing with their dates attached. They show that real change often comes from laws, scientists, volunteers and businesses working over years, and that hope is most useful when it comes with accurate information.
For another artist who uses simple drawings to comment on society, see Sako Asko's Illustrations Turn Social Contradictions Into Images.
Sources: The Happy Broadcast on Instagram; Mauro Gatti on Instagram; Open: interview with Mauro Gatti (Italian); My Modern Met: The Happy Broadcast; Wikipedia: Women to drive movement; Wikipedia: Giant panda; Wikipedia: The Ocean Cleanup; Wikipedia: Ayushman Bharat Yojana; Wikipedia: Ozone depletion; Wikipedia: Ingvar Kamprad; Wikipedia: Dick's Sporting Goods; Wikipedia: Fur farming; Wikipedia: APOPO; Wikipedia: Julia (Sesame Street). Illustrations © Mauro Gatti / The Happy Broadcast.
COMMENTS