The function of the news is to inform audience social, political and economic issues that affect…

The function of the news is to inform audience social, political and economic issues that affect their lives. Bad and good news are brought to audience by authors who believe that their selected information will appeal to the interest of readers, hence able to sell. The statement that the media nowadays focus too much on bad news is, in my opinion, an impetuous comment. Bad news tend to occupy and last longer in the readers’ memories because it creates a kind of dramatic appeal that is more attractive to the read from than that of good news. Human beings, though sometimes complain about the negativity of the news, have a tendency to commandeer negative and dramatic news and share it.

In order words, if we see two articles in a Daily Telegraph with one about ‘Queen Elizabeth II celebrated her ‘eighty- something’-ieth birthday’ and other about ‘A hike in income tax’, the likelihood of us reading the latter is higher. Hence, bad news, in particularly those the affect our daily decision’ sell better. However, judging on the popularity of the news based on its negativity does not present a full picture. One’s judgment on the quality of the news is also influenced on the dramatic level of its content and its resonance to his or her situation.

There might be a slight distortion in the amount of bad news that occupy newspaper, however ‘too much’ would embellish it. In fact, it is our tendency to read ‘too much’ bad news that leads to such assumption. Stories in books and novels inevitably have mellow and sorrowful notes. For example while, lei readers might accuse William Golding’s novel ‘Lord of the flies’ a dark work of criticism, serious readers might praise it for delving into human’s nature hence clarifying the causes the imperfection in the society. A story with negative connotation can have underlying purpose such as that of Golding, which is to encourage reader to examine their behavior and makes changes to their perception of the world.

According to Canfield’s ‘Laws of attraction’, our interpretation and treatment of something determines what we gain from it. The same applies to our view of , supposedly, ‘bad’ news. While a buyer of Facebook’s stocks might consider the withdrawal of GM a bad news, the management of Google consider it as a good news. In a free market, readers as powerful stakeholder should be able to dictate what type of news they want to be sold in the market by voicing their opinion or casting economic votes (by buying that work or not).