LAST week, a beautifully-written column by Victoria Coren Mitchell appeared in the Guardian.

In the article, which was headlined ‘Stop the world, I need a break’, the author said her “best advice” to those reporting “non-specific unhappiness and anxiety” has been to “just switch the world off for a bit”.

Even this approach has proved ineffective in the context of some of the country’s most recent news, which is “torture to contemplate” and has left her “haunted”, Coren Mitchell said.

She writes: “There are images that I never want to see, don’t want to have seen.

“You do something to help if you can, do nothing to help if there is nothing, and then – when you think you’d be best off tuning out for a bit – you can’t.

“Can’t shake it.”

Instead, she offered readers a list of nice things to enjoy both online and in the real world, from sea views to the word ‘goblin’ and brown paper packages tied up with string.

She even suggested thinking of Ed Balls lugging partner Kayta Jones about like a sack of potatoes on last year’s series of Strictly Come Dancing, which just goes to show how desperate times really are.

As those of us who regularly seek out Coren Mitchell’s columns will expect, it was a warm and thoughtful read, characterised by her usual humour and effortless writing style.

It was also completely wrong.

No one can be in any doubt at all that the news has been relentlessly appalling this year.

The UK has faced what feels like a ceaseless parade of sickening tragedies.

Many people who were previously living entirely normal lives have become the innocent victims of catastrophe. Some of those victims have been very young indeed, with their whole lives ahead of them.

For those of us who have the great fortune not to have been personally involved in these terrible incidents, there is an entirely understandable desire to turn off our TVs, unplug the WiFi and have a brief afternoon pretending none of it is happening.

But that doesn’t mean it isn’t happening.

And, as adults, it simply isn’t good enough for us to clear our heads “at the exclusion of all else” by going on picnics and watching Christmas specials, as Coren Mitchell suggests.

Instead, we - the people of a democratic society - have the responsibility of bearing witness to these horrors.

It’s a dubious honour, but an honour nonetheless.

And it’s important that we take it seriously.

Our press may be biased, but it is also blessedly free.

If you don’t like the way one paper or channel is reporting the news, then seek out other ways to find out what’s going on. But don’t stop reading the story altogether.

Rather than trying to ignore the news, we must instead be as clued up as we can about current events.

Information is our right and it is the way we can best hold our elected representatives to account.

It paves the way for us to campaign for change where we feel change is necessary.

More than that, keeping our eyes open when we’d rather shut them is our moral charge.

It might be that there is nothing we can do at all, no politician to lobby, no fund to donate to, no heated discussions to have.

But even then, even when we are helpless to play any practical part at all, we have to keep watching. That is a vital role.

Being a mute witness as terrible events unfold can be difficult to bear.

That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t bear it.

If we are privileged enough to be able to step away from awful news altogether, as if it doesn’t exist, then we are privileged indeed.

And that comes with its own set of obligations - ones we would do well to remember when we want to step away from the rest of the world and bury our heads in the sand.