If we’re constantly telling a negative story, we are not giving our audience the most accurate portrait of reality. We are doing a good job telling you why Covid cases are rising in some places and how the vaccines are imperfect — but not such a good job explaining why cases are falling elsewhere or how the vaccines save lives. To put it another way, the stories that people choose to read skew even more negative than the stories that media organizations choose to publish. “Human beings, particularly consumers of major media, like negativity in their stories,” Sacerdote said. I have worked in media for nearly three decades, and I think you might be surprised by how little time journalists spend talking about audience size.

Source: International New York Times March 24, 2021 11:15 UTC