How The Media’s
Use of Fear And Negativity Affects Your Health
If it bleeds, it leads.” If you’re unfamiliar with this phrase, it might surprise you to know the source from where it comes; the news media. For many years this singular, salacious phrase has been used as a sort of ‘secret code’ among the people who create our daily news. What it means is that negative news is, in effect, more important than positive, and therefore should be aired first, or ‘lead’ the news cycle. To better understand why this phrase became popular, it’s important to keep in mind that media organizations, including TV, newspapers, and magazines, are businesses first and foremost. It’s their job to attract viewers and readers because sponsors pay more money for larger audiences. If 16 | DECEMBER 2020
negative news stories are more popular than positive (and there is vast research showing they are) it only makes good business sense for negative stories to take precedence over positive stories. That being said, the next question that must be asked is this; why do we, as a society, gravitate to negative new stories rather than positive? Taking that a step further, we also must ask how a constant diet of negative news is affecting society on a psychological, physical, and social level. Lastly, if you run a business of your own, the question of how all this negative news affects your employees and their productivity becomes much more important.
WORKLIFE
