negative news

Reading BBC News this weekend, my attention was drawn by a positive story Meningitis cases ‘at record low’. I was struck by the positive reporting and wondered whether that reaction was fair. Looking at the index of stories below it was noticeable that the positive tone was unusual:

negative news.

Just look at the language: “blunder, suffers, plea, assault, deadly, carnage, weakest, attacks, weak, shut”.

Now the bottom right corner sounds more positive:

  • Cow genome ‘to transform farming’
  • Cheryl Cole to record solo songs
  • Facebook users say yes to changes

But really the positivity depends on where you stand on genetic research, manufactured pop and the ethics of social networking businesses.