The interest in bad news seems to parallel the popularity of horror movies and crime novels. There seem to be more fictional murders on British TV each year than actual murders in British life.
You see this problem in all kinds of industries. Humans have appetites that it would be better if we didn’t fill. We like drinking, video games, and sugar. Do these industries or government regulators have a moral responsibility to trim their sails? When it comes to cigarettes, the answer is a pretty emphatic yes. Soda is on shakier ground.
I’m a big believer in structuring environments to nudge people’s behavior. Offices shouldn’t offer free candy, for instance.
I see a lot of news organizations complain that they are getting pushback from filing even mildly negative stories about Biden, but the failures of the media have been documented for decades, if not centuries. A tendency to report on stories not because they are important, but because everyone else is reporting on them (“feeding frenzy”). No attempts to contextualize stories or indicate their relative importance, hence, the 2016 election coverage being 40% stories about private email servers. And yes, a negativity bias (“if it bleeds, it leads”).
So I’m not so sure it’s “our fault,” or believe it’s up to us individually to fix them. These problems have been around forever. I’d also say as a bog supporter of local journalism, my town paper, the San Francisco Chronicle, simply doesn’t generate all the much content. There aren’t little stories about town halls and comment periods. It’s not uncommon for the front page to remain unchanged for several days.
I will say — always, always, always read the article before commenting or retweeting. Make sure it says what you think it says.
There is also a philosophical sense in which most things improve slowly but deteriorate quickly. The stock market creeps up slowly until it crashes. Getting in shape is gradual, getting hurt is immediate.
This suggests to me that the speed of the news cycle is the culprit here. If you're going to write about things that change a lot day to day, then most news will be bad news.
What ever happened to UpWorthy? They were self-consciously designed to counter this trend, by a former founder of Huffington Post if I recall (a simpler time, when those were our "new media" and its attempted antidote).
I seem to recall that UpWorthy pioneered some of the worst clickbait strategies like "you'll never guess what happened next!", and the Facebook crackdown on that sort of headline may have hit them in a way they couldn't recover from.
But if the positive content strategy is separable from the awful clickbait headline strategy, then maybe someone should give it another go.
Who really wants to read a good news story anyways? Feels so self congratulatory. I deliver enough of that to myself through non-news channels. e.g. "Way to go you, unloading the dishwasher was a really helpful thing you just did for the family." "California Dad Unloads Dishwasher" story not needed.
It's a valid point...to a point....and used by many a journalist... But what Matt is talking about are things like the NY Times doing a headline like "Worrisome Covid Variant" only to wait until deep down in the article to mention in a single sentence that the current vaccines are 80% effective against it. And that is the useful part of the whole story so the headline could as easily have been "Current Vaccines 80% Effective Against New Variant" . Its' not quite yellow journalism, but in the midst of a pandemic, it's sort of a pale mustard yellowish kinda journalism that is getting old with many of us who have the power to cancel our subscriptions.
But it seems like that approach is not getting old with most people who subscribe and in fact is driving new subscriptions...
"I'd like to waste some time reading a modestly informative & interesting news article about a topic that seems worrisome" > "I'd like to waste some time reading a modestly informative & interesting news article about a topic that seems like it's not a major problem in the world."
Instead of reading news, don't read news seems like a likely winner in happiness head to heads, given the alternative things available to do with ones time, regardless of the positivity of the content.
Maybe there's some steps the major social media platforms could take that would help offset the "Chicken Little" problem. Like Twitter's nudge to reduce the bad habit of sharing articles that you haven't read, based solely on the headline.
I like the article but still blame big tech, I think due to a differing definition of user choose.
Social media is where most news is consumed. Those platforms are serving up what users will click on, but not necessarily what people would choose if given control over their streams. We are all prone to focus-on/react-to/click-on things that make us angry and afraid for, now moot, evolutionary reasons. In an attention-based ad economy, fear and anger are the fastest ways to hook readers and make revenue.
Unless something external forces these platforms to change, they are going to continue optimizing profits by serving up the most "engaging" headlines and the news media will have to follow that market incentive.
I'm trying to imagine the editor mulling this over and deciding that this was newsworthy -- although I suspect there was precious little mulling. My guess is, as Matt says, the editor decided that this was the kind of story the readers thirst for and if he or she decided to kill it then that would be a pollyanish hiding the truth from the reading public.
Also, while this is arguably true much of the time, the Trump era may have heightened the whole negativity thing on both sides. For many on the left, anger and despair over what Trump is doing, and many on the right angry at the media and hidden state actors and liberals trying to stop him. And Trump seemed to like to fan those flames, stoking the anger on both sides. So, perhaps there is a significant "Trump effect" lumped into this dynamic.
Those who deactivate Facebook, Twitter, etc., may in the short run become less informed, but only because such "social media" have decimated so much of the information economy that once keep us informed. The piece here at Slow Boring about the "lab leak" story (and especially Tufekci's piece at her blog: https://www.theinsight.org/p/how-the-twittermedia-feedback-loop) for me confirm that Facebook and Twitter (and similar outlets like Instagram, Pinterest--does that still exist?) should be dumped, I suppose in the only way they can be: a mass movement to "cancel" them presumably caused by obsessive media attention a la the 2020 obsession with George Floyd. As in, we would be better off if they simply disappeared, right away. They serve no function that could not be better done by a variety of other media. They are means of communication that have largely failed. The remainder of the big "tech" companies (the GAAFTS, I call them: Google, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Twitter, Spotify), on the other hand, have more "real world" import, though in Spotify's case that largely entails making a new version of Muzak.
In journalism there are basically two types of lies suggestio falsi and suppresio veri. Responsible and ethical journalists take the former seriously for what that is worth. It is debatable whether or not such now dominate in the field of journalism. But the latter, suppresio veri, is standard journalistic practice by and large. Want some Vox examples?
The interest in bad news seems to parallel the popularity of horror movies and crime novels. There seem to be more fictional murders on British TV each year than actual murders in British life.
You see this problem in all kinds of industries. Humans have appetites that it would be better if we didn’t fill. We like drinking, video games, and sugar. Do these industries or government regulators have a moral responsibility to trim their sails? When it comes to cigarettes, the answer is a pretty emphatic yes. Soda is on shakier ground.
I’m a big believer in structuring environments to nudge people’s behavior. Offices shouldn’t offer free candy, for instance.
I see a lot of news organizations complain that they are getting pushback from filing even mildly negative stories about Biden, but the failures of the media have been documented for decades, if not centuries. A tendency to report on stories not because they are important, but because everyone else is reporting on them (“feeding frenzy”). No attempts to contextualize stories or indicate their relative importance, hence, the 2016 election coverage being 40% stories about private email servers. And yes, a negativity bias (“if it bleeds, it leads”).
So I’m not so sure it’s “our fault,” or believe it’s up to us individually to fix them. These problems have been around forever. I’d also say as a bog supporter of local journalism, my town paper, the San Francisco Chronicle, simply doesn’t generate all the much content. There aren’t little stories about town halls and comment periods. It’s not uncommon for the front page to remain unchanged for several days.
I will say — always, always, always read the article before commenting or retweeting. Make sure it says what you think it says.
Didn't you say you don't like second-person headlines? It's not *my* fault, I read good content like Slow Boring!
absolutely spot-on.
Best connect-the-dots I've seen in months. Just Sayin'.
Thanks for a bad news, bad news article we could relish and resend
There is also a philosophical sense in which most things improve slowly but deteriorate quickly. The stock market creeps up slowly until it crashes. Getting in shape is gradual, getting hurt is immediate.
This suggests to me that the speed of the news cycle is the culprit here. If you're going to write about things that change a lot day to day, then most news will be bad news.
What ever happened to UpWorthy? They were self-consciously designed to counter this trend, by a former founder of Huffington Post if I recall (a simpler time, when those were our "new media" and its attempted antidote).
I seem to recall that UpWorthy pioneered some of the worst clickbait strategies like "you'll never guess what happened next!", and the Facebook crackdown on that sort of headline may have hit them in a way they couldn't recover from.
But if the positive content strategy is separable from the awful clickbait headline strategy, then maybe someone should give it another go.
Who really wants to read a good news story anyways? Feels so self congratulatory. I deliver enough of that to myself through non-news channels. e.g. "Way to go you, unloading the dishwasher was a really helpful thing you just did for the family." "California Dad Unloads Dishwasher" story not needed.
It'd be news in my household.
It's a valid point...to a point....and used by many a journalist... But what Matt is talking about are things like the NY Times doing a headline like "Worrisome Covid Variant" only to wait until deep down in the article to mention in a single sentence that the current vaccines are 80% effective against it. And that is the useful part of the whole story so the headline could as easily have been "Current Vaccines 80% Effective Against New Variant" . Its' not quite yellow journalism, but in the midst of a pandemic, it's sort of a pale mustard yellowish kinda journalism that is getting old with many of us who have the power to cancel our subscriptions.
But it seems like that approach is not getting old with most people who subscribe and in fact is driving new subscriptions...
"I'd like to waste some time reading a modestly informative & interesting news article about a topic that seems worrisome" > "I'd like to waste some time reading a modestly informative & interesting news article about a topic that seems like it's not a major problem in the world."
Instead of reading news, don't read news seems like a likely winner in happiness head to heads, given the alternative things available to do with ones time, regardless of the positivity of the content.
Maybe there's some steps the major social media platforms could take that would help offset the "Chicken Little" problem. Like Twitter's nudge to reduce the bad habit of sharing articles that you haven't read, based solely on the headline.
I like the article but still blame big tech, I think due to a differing definition of user choose.
Social media is where most news is consumed. Those platforms are serving up what users will click on, but not necessarily what people would choose if given control over their streams. We are all prone to focus-on/react-to/click-on things that make us angry and afraid for, now moot, evolutionary reasons. In an attention-based ad economy, fear and anger are the fastest ways to hook readers and make revenue.
Unless something external forces these platforms to change, they are going to continue optimizing profits by serving up the most "engaging" headlines and the news media will have to follow that market incentive.
"being mad all the time is not actually satisfying or conducive to human happiness."
Amen.
So true. But unfortunately, like many other things inconducive to human happiness, it is addictive. (“I’m a rageaholic! I’m addicted to rageahol!”)
Great post.
So today I open my Los Angeles Times and read a prominently featured story that informs me that in Napa County, an elderly woman with underlying health problems got the vaccine, but then contracted COVID and a month later died (https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-06-07/napa-county-records-first-fully-vacinated-person-covid-death)
I'm trying to imagine the editor mulling this over and deciding that this was newsworthy -- although I suspect there was precious little mulling. My guess is, as Matt says, the editor decided that this was the kind of story the readers thirst for and if he or she decided to kill it then that would be a pollyanish hiding the truth from the reading public.
I imagine certain people absolutely crave stories like that one. The people who got vaccinated yet don’t want to give up their mask.
Also, while this is arguably true much of the time, the Trump era may have heightened the whole negativity thing on both sides. For many on the left, anger and despair over what Trump is doing, and many on the right angry at the media and hidden state actors and liberals trying to stop him. And Trump seemed to like to fan those flames, stoking the anger on both sides. So, perhaps there is a significant "Trump effect" lumped into this dynamic.
Those who deactivate Facebook, Twitter, etc., may in the short run become less informed, but only because such "social media" have decimated so much of the information economy that once keep us informed. The piece here at Slow Boring about the "lab leak" story (and especially Tufekci's piece at her blog: https://www.theinsight.org/p/how-the-twittermedia-feedback-loop) for me confirm that Facebook and Twitter (and similar outlets like Instagram, Pinterest--does that still exist?) should be dumped, I suppose in the only way they can be: a mass movement to "cancel" them presumably caused by obsessive media attention a la the 2020 obsession with George Floyd. As in, we would be better off if they simply disappeared, right away. They serve no function that could not be better done by a variety of other media. They are means of communication that have largely failed. The remainder of the big "tech" companies (the GAAFTS, I call them: Google, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Twitter, Spotify), on the other hand, have more "real world" import, though in Spotify's case that largely entails making a new version of Muzak.
In journalism there are basically two types of lies suggestio falsi and suppresio veri. Responsible and ethical journalists take the former seriously for what that is worth. It is debatable whether or not such now dominate in the field of journalism. But the latter, suppresio veri, is standard journalistic practice by and large. Want some Vox examples?