h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

If I was asked to guess the proportion of positive:negative news items, I'd guess at least 1:10. Are positive stories so boring or hard to find? Why do we love to hear about disasters?

Good question. Maybe it's something to do with feeling it's good to know others are worse off than ourselves? The woman in my local library said all the books on murder are the most popular.

Yes I think people quickly get envious about 'good news'. I know I did watching the Italians celebrating winning the World Cup.

Good news films are popular though because you can immerse yourself in the story and feel like it's happening to you.

Maybe at heart we humans are just a nasty bunch of b*s*a*ds?

Several reasons I think, ZSF, primarily ratings. People love sensationalism and shock, and good news rarely delivers that. Broadcast news in particular is no longer the public service it once was (at least, in Britain) - now it's a money-spinner and generator of income.

And then of course, there's the old adage 'Good news is no news'.

Or is it 'No news is good news'?

Either way, good news is just not 'sexy'

And then there's the very nature of news itself - what's it for? Originally, at least in the modern broadcast and print era, I'd say it was to inform. There's not much point in informing people of something nice that happened, but if there has been a disaster or an incident of some kind people will want to know for a number of reasons - is anyone I know likely to have been involved? Should I avoid the area?

What was the name of that news reader who made a similar complaint?

*rummages in memory*

*fails*

I'll go look it up

Martin somebody... I can see his face but can't get his second name.

Well it isn't Bell or Sixsmith - your memory must work (or not work) exactly the same way as mine Gosho!

Definitely not Martin Bell. See if any of these names ring a...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:BBC_newsreaders_and_journalists

That list of reporters is interesting, Gosho.

I found this: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=9061893&dopt=Abstract which appears to indicate that negative news is bad for mental health.

And another experiment which tends to show that we remember bad news, but don't remember good news as easily http://www.psu.edu/dept/medialab/research/negnews.html (which might mean there's not as much bad news as I think there is).

o/±

>>which appears to indicate that negative news is bad for mental health.<< post 8

Couldn't understand from the link in what state of mental health the subjects were in to start with. From my own experience this is absolutely critical. When I'm feeling really low the last thing I want to hear about is a lot of happy clappy good news. Just can't relate to it, it seems silly. Makes me feel alienated. But give me a good war story and I'll feel fine.

A similar thing happens at christmas when there's all this artificial feel-good stuff around. Don't many people feel more suicidal at christmas?

I think the whole subject is really complex and not easily explained by what is good or not for mental health.