I read a report that stated the top 10 Internet news sites (yahoo, google, cnn, etc.) tend to mirror the same depressing coverage that isseen on the nightly news. There are some sites that are starting to focus more on positive media. One that I like best is Champoli (www.champoli.com).

It will be interesting to see if this is a new category that starts to take off, or if the traditional media starts to "get it" and reduce the amount of sensationalized headlines, biased coverage, and generally negative bias.

As a newspaper journalist, and a rather sunshiney one at that, I hate when people tell me that all we ever print is doom and gloom. It's not my fault that the majority of news out there is negative. When the city I cover wastes tax payer dollars on credit cards to pay for their own lunches, I would love to write a story telling you that it's a happy day because there is such an abundance of tax dollars that no one will miss a few thousand dollars on some margaritas and Hooters dinners. If people want to live in a perpetual state of bliss and ignorance, move to Disney World, buy a lifetime supply of opium and smoke it while you ride constantly through "It's a Small World" hour after hour.

Good thought provoing blog this time.

The newspapers are struggling to stay in business. They are cutting cost and raising subscription and advertising rates dramatically. Some Sunday editions are now over $3.00. The paper is physically shrinking, the ads and inserts dominate, the type is getting smaller, the articles and content are less and less and the ink is getting dimmer. Fewer doorsteps on my block have papers there in the morning.

The reasons for the news media’s decline are many but mainly it is because of the TV and the Internet. You can pick up a paper and will rarely see, except for local items, things you have not already seen on MSN, Google, Yahoo and other browsers or news sites. Cyberspace has much better coverage, videos, more pictures and they are all up to the minute and fresh, Everyone’s home page on their computer has all the weather, news, market condition, favorite cartoons (Dilbert of course) email and contact with the outside world instantaneously and archived.

Us old folks still buy the paper but it is mostly to just have something to read with our coffee, while waiting for a doctor’s appointment or other such “I am stuck here” moments. It is lucky if it lives long enough to line the bottom of the bird cage.

The quality of the writing and reporting has slipped substantially with the influx of new journalism majors that all took the same teachers and courses. The cookie cutter news pieces are boringly standardized. You can see formula written all over them.

In search of readers, circulation and advertising dollars the editors have no shame in over dramatizing the headlines and grossly misrepresenting the actual content of the piece. At the end of the item the reader feels betrayed and vows not to be sucked in again.

Many of the mainstay papers like the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Wall Street Journal and others are stooping to National Enquirer style stories, titillating and looking the other way at verification of the veracity and truthfulness of the content. They never apologize to any extent for errors, misinformation or plain yellow journalism. They are money-making businesses and have really lost the heart and soul of the press of yonder years.

Sad, but the print media are dinosaurs and headed for the bone yard. TV news reporting is getting there also with many of the same ills. Good books and artistic no-violent movies are scarce because they are not bankable.

But even the Internet is now showing some of the signs of being robotized and is getting overblown with hype. A search on Google for “George Washington” produces 30.6 million hits but most end up asking for your credit card number. Maybe on page 5,000 there will be some intelligent, accurate and historically significant information about this icon founding father. Google and Yahoo have sold out.

Solution? Go back to the classics, read the Bible and/or make up your own stories? Don’t know, but maybe there is still hope for a better future as the human spirit is indomitable.

I was wondering recently whether there would be a market for a happy newspaper. More usefully, happy news TV. I think a lot of what's going to crap in the world is due to TV presentation of current events being so exaggeratedly negative. Everything you see is crime. The first effect of this is that it leaves people afraid of crime, where they wouldn't be without the news (and usually it is not justified to be afraid). The second effect is that people *expect* crime, especially of teenagers - all gangs and druggies don't you know. A generation on, the third effect is more crime - being brought up in an environment where crime is the expected behaviour of teenagers, people tend to live up (or down) to expections.

The funny thing is, I and apparently most of my friends love real newspapers for the "feeling and/or smell of fresh paper".

Apparently, in some parts of Germany the genuine feel of dead trees is much better than the news itself.

@Jaxxfox
Pretty sure NotThisGod was making a joke. Somehow I'm not surprised you didn't get it.

It depends on how you collect news or program your news aggregator or your RSS. A lot depends on how you view the news you are reading, too.

I am astonished at how an active blog comments section could be turned so stale simply by registration and turning off cuss words.

What cretinous, useless, negligible tosser (acronym) decided on that policy? See you next thursday...

Nothing travels faster than bad news (building a spaceship on that basis proved unsuccessful because wherever you arrived with it, you were never welcome says Douglas Adams), so with the old media that was neccessary to get the message to the reader fast. The internet has made that artificial downbeating unneccessary because of its own speed advantage - now the natural optimistic character of the idiots featuring in all those news can remain in its original state.

Nah, the papers seem to have a solid behaviour pattern which has emerged over time - negative news headlines sell more copy (even though they're basically on the way out).

Perhaps there's a lingering link between internet users and being more upbeat in general - adopters of new tech aren't paranoid old farts who want to confirm their negative world view.

Plus, I suppose the economics of "selling" a website are different. Although you sell ad space in newspapers, it's not their only source of revenue...

Scott's Posts Have Potential for Improvement!

Not quite what has been asked, but related: automatically finding happiness (and sadness) on the web:

http://www.cs.unt.edu/~rada/papers/mihalcea.aaaiss06.pdf

Holy Shi'it, it worked.

Who cares about the news, that's for geeks.

My comments are now going to be creative ways to leave cuss words in the comments.

I hope you don't mind. Sometimes you just have to say "What the FFuucccckkkkk"

make the monkeys dance - like only you can ...
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/06/service-lets-yo.html

I think there is also probably a level of insulation when reading news online. When you read a newspaper there is something tangible that you touch and smell, so the news "feels" more real, when your reading something online it is no more real than that video game you were playing 5 minutes earlier. So I think you could run the same headlines online that you do in a newspaper and find that people reading the articles online are slightly happier than those reading the paper.

Also when reading an article online you can simply hit the back button to avoid the disturbing story and then you never are bothered by it again, whereas in a newspaper since most articles are continued later in the paper you are bound to run across the same article again thus reminding you of the bad news all over again.

@NotThisGod
Somehow I'm not surprised that Fox News reports using Barack's middle name.

Scott - I don't know if it is internet v. hard copy, but I do think where you get your news says a lot about you as a person. Each media outlet has its own unique set of biases even though they all try to say they are objective. I read in Popular Science one time that a scientist who studies garbage for a living (yes, he tunnels down into landfills and tries to make theories about how Americans live now versus the recent past; he calls himself a garbologist) was able to find a correlation between cat food/cat litter and The National Enquirer magazine. From that I picture a little old lady with a doily on the back of her chair and 12 cats in her lap reading an article about a 4'3" 235 lb infant who was just born in the Philipines to midget parents.

He also said that hot dogs survive buried in a land fill for up to 25 years. Mmmm . . . hungry anyone?

Somalia - Cancer related deaths lower than Western nations!

Almost anything can be made to have a positive spin