Eighty seven percent of stories by U.S. major media outlets are negative in tone

From Why Is All COVID-19 News Bad News? by Bruce Sacerdote, Ranjan Sehgal and Molly Cook.  From the Abstract:

We analyze the tone of COVID-19 related English-language news articles written since January 1, 2020. Eighty seven percent of stories by U.S. major media outlets are negative in tone versus fifty percent for non-U.S. major sources and sixty four percent for scientific journals. The negativity of the U.S. major media is notable even in areas with positive developments including school reopenings and vaccine trials. Media negativity is unresponsive to changing trends in new COVID-19 cases or the political leanings of the audience. As evidenced by most viewed and most shared major media readers in the U.S. and U.K. strongly prefer negative stories about COVID19, and negative stories in general. But the U.S. major media is more willing to satisfy this demand for negativity in both COVID and pre-COVID years. We suggest that this American exceptionalism stems from the lack of fair and balanced media laws and a lack of a large public option in the U.S. media. The causal impacts of this negative COVID coverage are less obvious; counties in the U.S. that rely more heavily on the major media are as likely to re-open schools as other similar counties.

So regardless of events and trend lines, US media reporting is almost unrelentingly negative (87%).  Foreign media is 50% negative and scientific journals are 64% negative.  This seems to be the empirical documentation of the mainstream media business model - what is termed panic porn or, more traditionally, if it bleeds it leads.  

There is an elaboration in the Conclusion section which is revealing about the independence and objectivity of the research.

Overall, we find that COVID-19 stories from U.S. major media outlets are much more negative than similar stories from other U.S. outlets and from non-U.S. sources. The negativity does not respond to changes in new cases. Potentially positive developments such as vaccine stories receive less attention from U.S. outlets than do negative stories about Trump and hydroxychloroquine. Overall, we are unable to explain the variation in negativity by appealing to political affiliation or case count changes, but we do find that U.S. readers demand negative stories (as evidenced by article popularity). 

 

An obvious question is, why are the U.S. major media so much more negative than international media and other outlets? We show that demand for negative stories (as proxied by Most Read and Most Facebook shared stories) is quite strong in the U.S. and the U.K. among readers of the New York Times, CNN, and BBC. Yet U.S. outlets are more likely to cater to the demand for negativity than are international outlets. We suggest three possible explanations which deserve further exploration. First, most of the non-U.S. markets in our sample include a dominant publicly owned news source. The U.K. has the BBC, while Canada has CBC and Australia has the ABC. Each of these news outlets is the number one news source in its respective country and may be following a different objective function than private news providers. This could potentially alter the behavior of all news providers. 

 

Second, U.S. media markets are notably less concentrated that media markets in other OECD countries (Noam 2016). This higher level of competition may cause U.S. major media companies to use negativity as a tool to attract viewers. 

 

Finally, the U.S. Federal Communication Commission eliminated its fairness doctrine regulation in 1987. This regulation required broadcasters to provide adequate coverage of public issues and to fairly represent opposing views. In contrast the U.K. and Canada still maintain such regulations.  On the surface, the fairness doctrine would appear most relevant to partisan bias as opposed to negativity. It may be that profit maximizing U.S. news providers realized that they should provide not only partisan news to serve their consumers tastes but also negative news which is in high demand. We hope that our results spur additional investigation of U.S. media negativity and its causes and consequences.

 My primary concern is whether there is a selection bias going on.  The researchers are looking at TV and print news sources and yet a significant percent of the population does not subscribe or follow those channels.  In addition, many obtain their news information from various forms of talk radio.  

I wonder to what degree the researches findings might be skewed by ignoring the incredible multiplicity of a) citizen interest in news and b) citizen choice of how to access news.  

This might also explain the otherwise perplexing finding that "Overall, we are unable to explain the variation in negativity by appealing to political affiliation."  Perhaps because there is virtually no political affiliation variance among the channels they are tracking.  

Then there is the puzzling blindness which shapes some of their theories.  For example, when speculating about public media influence.

The U.K. has the BBC, while Canada has CBC and Australia has the ABC. Each of these news outlets is the number one news source in its respective country and may be following a different objective function than private news providers.

NPR/PBS are not number one news sources but they are available all across the country in a fashion which print media is not.  And NPR is especially consumed by the influential chattering class compared to most Americans.  NPR, the New York Times, and Washington Post are perhaps the most influential news sources by those who consume legacy media news but they are all pretty much peas in a pod in their weltanschauung and reporting.

Then there is:

Second, U.S. media markets are notably less concentrated that media markets in other OECD countries (Noam 2016). This higher level of competition may cause U.S. major media  companies to use negativity as a tool to attract viewers. 

American media has been enormously concentrated for decades.  At the thin margins there are more voices than there used to be but in terms of eyeballs and ears, it is an inordinately concentrated industry.  So much so we had to write laws decades ago to exempt media companies from normal anti-trust legislation.  Other than New York, hardly any US city has more than a single dominant newspaper.  In London you can go into a newsagent and choose The Times, The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Sun, The Daily Mirror.  

Competition is there, but it is not among the other media.  The mainstream media are competing against mistrust, indifference and technology changes, not each other.

And the FCC Fairness Doctrine?  What a nostalgic appeal to a dream of the Marxist professor lounge conversations of the 1960s.  

For all the disconnectedness from the media reality of today, it is interesting and useful to have the data they have generated, as long as it is understood in the context of its weaknesses.