The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of News

I have always heard the phrase, "focus on the good(positives), not the bad (negatives) in life". However, that is sometimes difficult to do when all the news channels only seem to deliver the bad. Especially with the pandemic of COVID-19, the news never highlight stories with a happy ending or emphasize the good deeds of mankind. It can be quite disheartening to only hearing what's wrong with the world, but we cannot be naive about the information or dismiss the importance. There needs to be a balance of both.

Furthermore, there is little variety of news coverage among stations. As I flip through each channel, it seems to be the same story with a little bias sprinkled in from the newscasters. There are a few instances, where there is a popular channel dedicated to only good news or a channel diverse in perspectives and content. Recently, popular actor, John Krasinski, produced a show on Youtube that reports only good news from around the world. Unfortunately, there is a scarcity in channels like this, but how come? Is the problem the producers' choices of news, the viewer's desires for bad news, or just the good of humanity? Do producers only put out bad stories to satisfy the cravings of a negative-obsessed audience or is it the source itself that there a rarity of good news in the world that producers can't seem to find?

There is actually a psychology behind the theory. Tom Stafford, a psychologist, poses the idea that we are drawn to depressing stories about disaster, corruption, and incompetence without realizing it. But why are we so desensitized and even wish to hear it? Are journalists trained to only look for the bad or does bad news make for a more interesting story that drives viewers to watch? A study was even conducted that resulted in people interested in bad news over good news even if it wasn't their intention. The researchers presented their experiment as evidence for the term, "negativity bias", which is our collective hunger to hear and remember bad news. We are evolved to react quickly to potential threats and view bad news as a signal that we need to change what we're doing to avoid danger. It is innate that we focus on the unpleasant than the pleasant in order for survival. We react more to negative words. Nevertheless, our vigilance is not the only explanation for our inclination for bad news. Another perspective is that we pay attention to the bad news because as a society, we think the world is brighter than it actually is. We are focused on our own lives thinking we are better than average and expect things to be all right in the end, which makes bad news more surprising and notable. Just like black and white, the white makes the black more noticeable and vice versa. Therefore, our attraction to bad news is more complex than one might think.

News is so essential to our daily lives. According to a recent Nielsen study, 169 million Americans read their news either through print, online or on their mobile devices typically in the workday mornings. The social media platform has opened access to many more people and topics have varied from politics, sports, to entertainment. This has helped facilitate more good news to arise in comparison to the alarming and extreme news that floods news stations. 
Related Articles:

Psychology: Why Bad News Dominates the Headlines

Negativity Bias: Why we love bad news (and how to break our addiction to it)