Negativity In Local Newspapers

Negativity is what we some times refer to as ‘bad news’ but is often good business for the newspapers. The threshold is lower for reporting bad news than for good news, such is often unambiguous, consonant and occurs in a short period of

time. This is a fundamental word in the success of newspapers as cheerful and positive news/stories rarely sell as well as

what negative news does.

Source-http://www.suttonguardian.co.uk/

Here negative news dominates as it clearly shows that the threshold of bad news is ‘most shared’ in this particular local area. As shown

only one piece of news out of seven was positive, which gives an idea of what world we’re

living in.

1. Negative

2. Negative

3. Negative

4. Negative

5. Negative

6. Negative

7. Positive

Negative

Negative

Positive

Negative

Negative

Negative

Positive

Negative The ‘Croydon Advertiser’ is stereotypical to all other newspapers as once again the threshold of negative news overpowers that of positive news.

Source- http://www.thisiscroydontoday.co.uk/people/Croydon+Advertiser/profile.html

Source- http://www.southlondonpress.co.uk/

1. Negative

2. Negative

3. Negative

4. Positive

5. Negative

Once again negative news dominates the threshold of this local newspaper which is the ‘South London

Press’.

Results

Here are my results for the three local newspapers I looked at. As we can see the threshold for negative news was at a huge advantage over news with a positive outline. With a total of twenty stories I came across, only four of them managed to be positive which proves just how important negativity in stories are nowadays if newspapers are to be sold.