At a funeral I attended a couple of years ago, the priest commented in his homily that “simple ordinary goodness does not make the news.” I’m here to set the record straight.
In today’s 24-hour cable TV news coverage, he is correct. The big network news channels spend an inordinate amount of time covering bad news. A lot of air time this past week was on the ongoing controversy in the Women’s National Basketball Association and the war in Iran.
The reason for this is simple. That is what the public wants; it drives ratings and determines how much can be charged for advertising.
Many studies show people are drawn to negative stories. When I am at Walmart or a local grocery store, I watch people as they inspect our publications on the newspaper rack. There are two types of buyers. First is the regular consumer; they purchase a paper every week. Second is the casual consumer. They scan the headlines on the front page. Negative news attracts their attention.
In an experiment run at McGill University in Canada, researchers Marc Trussler and Stuart Soroka found that participants in their study often chose stories with a negative tone – corruption, setbacks, hypocrisy and so on – rather than neutral or positive stories. And yet when asked, these people said they preferred good news. On average, they said that the media was too focused on negative stories.
This phenomenon can also be verified anytime there is a car accident. On the interstate, you can be driving westbound, and traffic slows down for an accident in the eastbound lanes. As soon as you are past the accident, everyone returns to their normal speed. It’s called rubbernecking.
Two weeks ago an advertiser mentioned to Connie, my wife, that he was sick and tired of all the negative news in his newspaper. Obviously he had not yet read the current edition, which included a feature story that mentioned his businesses.
Going back to the McGill study, they determined that it isn’t just schadenfreude (pleasure derived by someone from another person’s misfortune), but that we’ve evolved to react quickly to potential threats. Bad news could be a signal that we need to change what we’re doing to avoid danger.
Another reason that good news takes less precedence on the nightly news and on the front page of many newspapers is that news covering “simple ordinary goodness” can wait. The good news does not go anywhere. On the other hand, bad news quickly becomes old news.
To those concerned about bad news in the paper, I ask, “If we don’t print it in the newspaper, does that mean it never happened?”
As a regular reader of our six newspapers, I hope you have noticed that simple ordinary goodness does make it to our pages.
Last week’s papers included these stories of simple goodness:
• Local youth share livestock bar experience — Gasconade County Republican
• Volunteers build bed, hope for children in need — Maries County Advocate
• Otto turns health challenges into gold-medal journey — Unterrified Democrat
• Power of Hope receives $40,000 grant — Cuba Free Press
• Cohen Woodworking strengthens skills, supports company growth — Steelville Star-Crawford Mirror
• St. James moms raise $6,150 for new fence at Tiger Jungle Club Playground — The Saint James Press
Four of the above stories were on the front page, above the fold.
Most stories in any community newspaper are neither negative nor positive; they are informative, like the stories that ran in last week’s newspapers reporting the primary election results.
Other pages of the newspaper are devoted to recording history, such as births, engagements, weddings and obituaries.
Negative news will always be around. I can’t stop it. But you can trust that the news printed in our publications is the truth. We do not print rumors that can be found on social media.
Bad news travels fast whether on Facebook, by phone, or on the internet. It will also remain a part of the newspaper. But with your help, there will always be stories of simple, ordinary goodness in our publications.
Call us with story ideas you would like to see printed.
