Ask A Genius 903: Pessimism in Reporting
Author(s): Rick Rosner and Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Ask A Genius
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2024/04/06
[Recording Start]
Rick Rosner: On Twitter, I left it up. Pessimism in news reporting is a thread about how bad news gets more eyeballs than good news. So, it goes into various areas. It is by John Burn-Murdoch, a columnist and chief data reporter at the Financial Times and a senior fellow at LSE Data Science. He shows how news focuses on bad news because it draws more interest and colours people’s perception of the economy here. People are doing well generally in America. They think the national economy is fucked, which is contrary to the economy in reality. It is due to adverse reporting. So, the economy and crime are at a 30-year low in America in most major cities, but people think crime is going crazy. Fox gets much engagement by creating crime stories, so people believe crime is high. My mom had that problem because she watched a bunch of How is about crime, like TJ Hooker. In the 1950s, the percentage of news headlines conveyed pessimism. In the 50s, it was between 15% and 17%, about 1/6th of headlines were pessimistic. As of 2022, 1/3rd of headlines are pessimistic. So, the pessimistic headlines have doubled over the last 50 years.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: It is much more, but not drastically more.
Rosner: Negative headlines drive more traffic. Do you know Kristi Noem?
Jacobsen: Ok.
Rosner: Very Trumpy, very Republican; she published a book about making tough decisions. She had this bit about shooting her dog and shooting her goat. The country went crazy jumping on her because, as presented, there was very little justification for shooting these innocent animals. People love this person who is an asshole and being able to jump all over her. People were more in love with responding to Kristi Noem than they would have been in responding to a story about somebody saintly. So, yes, people like grabbing onto negative stories and getting angry about them.
[Recording End]
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