I understand your point, but the American population is mostly delusional. We hardly notice homeless camps or admit there's something fundamentally wrong. There should be mass protests, but somehow, we still think things will magically turn around.

Some of us consider alternatives like yours and work towards solutions, but how to motivate a mass movement is our biggest hurdle. When people start organizing a movement the messaging will change, but until then, people need motivation and writers need an outlet.

Writers convey their emotions through writing, and people write for various reasons. Some write to vent, share, inform, etc. and the best part of reading is you choose what you want to read, but we are naturally attracted to bad news as a survival instinct.

Here's an article on the Negativity Bias:

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20140728-why-is-all-the-news-bad