It’s a question asked by many and rarely answered with much credibility; why is the news always so bad? In a world that progresses ever forward in terms of peace, quality of life and cooperation, shouldn’t the news be rolling out good stories?
Holding Power to Account
According to Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, the Director of Research at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, one of journalism’s main missions is to hold power to account. This naturally results in stories that focus on the tension between what politicians and businesses should be doing and what they really are doing.
Events Over Trends
Journalists are also drawn towards stories that focus on events, rather than trends. Not only do these stories write themselves better, but they are more likely to sell newspapers. Positive changes in society tend to happen in trends, while negative things are often a single event.
Where is the Good News?
Not all elements of news are inherently focused on the negative, and those pursuing a journalism degree like //schoolofjournalism.co.uk/ can choose to specialise in local or sports news, which often has a more celebratory slant. In a world of scary news, some news outlets, such as the BBC, even have a dedicated area for uplifting news.
The question of why there is so much bad news comes down to many factors, but two of these are the sale-ability and interest in events, and journalism’s original mission of holding power to account. That being said, there does seem to be space for some good news too.