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negative

Tuesday November 1, 2022

November 1, 2022 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday November 1, 2022

U.S. Headlines Expressing Anger, Fear, Disgust, and Sadness Increased Hugely Since 2000

About 42 percent of Americans now actively avoid news coverage, according to the Reuters Institute’s 2022 Digital News Report. That’s up from 38 percent in 2017. Nearly half of Americans who’ve turned away from the news say that they are doing so because it has a negative effect on their mood. As it happens, a new study in the journal PLoS One tracking the headlines in 47 publications popular in the United States reports that they have trended decidedly negative over the past two decades. 

Coincidence?

June 12, 2019

In their study, the team of New Zealand-based media researchers used a language model trained to categorize as positive or negative the sentiments of 23 million headlines between 2000 and 2019. In addition, the model was finetuned to identify Ekman’s six basic emotions (anger, disgust, fear, joy, sadness, surprise), plus neutral, to label the headlines automatically. Using the 2019 Allsides Media Bias Chart, the publications were ideologically categorized as left, right, or center. For example, The New Yorker, the New York Times Opinion, and Mother Jones were identified as left; National Review, Fox News Opinion, and The New York Post as right; and A.P., Reuters, and The Wall Street Journal as center. (Reason was pegged as right-leaning.)

After turning their language model loose on the millions of headlines, the researchers found “an increase of sentiment negativity in headlines across written news media since the year 2000.”

June 5, 2012

Overall, the researchers find that the prevalence of headlines denoting anger since the year 2000 increased by 104 percent. The prevalence of headlines denoting fear rose 150 percent; disgust by 29 percent; and sadness by 54 percent. The joy emotional category had its up and downs, rising until 2010 and falling after that. Headlines denoting neutral emotion declined by 30 percent since the year 2000. Breaking these down by ideology, headlines from right-leaning news media have been, on average, consistently more negative than headlines from left-leaning outlets.

Why are negative headlines becoming more prevalent? “If it bleeds, it leads” is a hoary journalistic aphorism summarizing the well-known fact that dramatic, even gory, stories engage the attention of news consumers. In other words, journalists are supplying news consumers with what they want. Given the global reach of modern news media, there is always some attention-grabbing horror that occurred somewhere that can be highlighted between weather and sports on your local TV news.

November 4, 2020

Journalistic catering to people’s negativity bias ends up misleading a lot of their audiences into thinking that the state of the world is getting worse and worse. However, looking at long term trends, the opposite is the case. Yes, yes, there are wars in Ukraine, Ethiopia, and Yemen and, of course, a global pandemic during the past two years has killed around 6.5 million people so far. “For reasons I have never understood, people like to hear that the world is going to hell, and become huffy and scornful when some idiotic optimist intrudes on their pleasure,” wrote economist Deidre McCloskey. “Yet pessimism has consistently been a poor guide to the modern economic world.” (Continued: Reason) 

 

Posted in: Canada, International, Lifestyle Tagged: 2022-36, climate crisis, crisis, depression, disaster, disease, division, Halloween, hate, inflation, media, negative, news, newspaper, pessimism

Saturday June 4, 2016

June 3, 2016 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator Ð Saturday June 4, 2016 Hillary Clinton's evisceration of Donald Trump There's a new Hillary Clinton in town. A speech that was billed as a major foreign policy address instead unfolded as a savage, mocking evisceration of Donald Trump Thursday as the former secretary of state adopted an aggressive new campaign persona designed to repel the unpredictable challenge posed by the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. In one of the most striking speeches of her political career, Clinton dispensed with the sober diplo-speak that has characterized her previous national security addresses and went straight for the jugular, unleashing a series of biting attacks on Trump. In the spirit of President Lyndon Johnson's notorious "Daisy" nuclear blast ad targeting Barry Goldwater's temperament in 1964, Clinton warned that Trump should not be let anywhere near the nuclear codes because he could start a war when somebody "got under his very thin skin." "He's not just unprepared -- he's temperamentally unfit to hold an office that requires knowledge, stability and immense responsibility," Clinton said during the speech in San Diego, California, days before Tuesday's primary in the Golden State effectively concludes the primary season and confirms her as the presumptive Democratic nominee over Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. Trump fired back while speaking at a rally in San Jose, California, Thursday night. "I watched Hillary today and it was pathetic. It was so sad to watch," Trump said, calling it a "political speech" that had nothing to do with foreign policy. "It was a pretty pathetic deal," he added. The speech marked a significant moment in Clinton's campaign, as it was the first real signal of the tactics and attitude she will use to take on Trump and offered a preview of what are likely to be fierce clashes between the rivals at a trio of presidential debates later in the year. It demonstrated the kind o

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday June 4, 2016

Hillary Clinton’s evisceration of Donald Trump

There’s a new Hillary Clinton in town.

A speech that was billed as a major foreign policy address instead unfolded as a savage, mocking evisceration of Donald Trump Thursday as the former secretary of state adopted an aggressive new campaign persona designed to repel the unpredictable challenge posed by the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.

In one of the most striking speeches of her political career, Clinton dispensed with the sober diplo-speak that has characterized her previous national security addresses and went straight for the jugular, unleashing a series of biting attacks on Trump.

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator Ð Tuesday February 8, 2000 The United States Senate election in New York in 2000 was held on November 7, 2000. First Lady of the United States Hillary Rodham Clinton, the first First Lady to run for political office, defeated Congressman Rick Lazio. The general election coincided with the 2000 U.S. presidential election. The race began in November 1998 when four-term incumbent New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan announced his retirement. Both the Democratic Party and Republican Party sought high-profile candidates to compete for the open seat. By early 1999 Clinton and Mayor of New York City Rudolph Giuliani were the likely respective nominees. Clinton and her husband, President Bill Clinton, purchased a house in Chappaqua, New York, in September 1999; she thereby become eligible for the election, although she faced characterizations of carpetbagging since she had never resided in the state before. The lead in statewide polls swung from Clinton to Giuliani and back to Clinton as the campaigns featured both successful strategies and mistakes as well as dealing with current events. In late April and May 2000, Giuliani's medical, romantic, marital, and political lives all collided in a tumultuous four-week period, culminating in his withdrawing from the race on May 19. (Source: Wikipedia) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_election_in_New_York,_2000 Hillary Clinton, USA, New York, NYC, carpetbagging, Senate, election, campaigning, statue, liberty

February 8, 2000

In the spirit of President Lyndon Johnson’s notorious “Daisy” nuclear blast ad targeting Barry Goldwater’s temperament in 1964, Clinton warned that Trump should not be let anywhere near the nuclear codes because he could start a war when somebody “got under his very thin skin.”

“He’s not just unprepared — he’s temperamentally unfit to hold an office that requires knowledge, stability and immense responsibility,” Clinton said during the speech in San Diego, California, days before Tuesday’s primary in the Golden State effectively concludes the primary season and confirms her as the presumptive Democratic nominee over Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Trump fired back while speaking at a rally in San Jose, California, Thursday night.

“I watched Hillary today and it was pathetic. It was so sad to watch,” Trump said, calling it a “political speech” that had nothing to do with foreign policy.

“It was a pretty pathetic deal,” he added.

The speech marked a significant moment in Clinton’s campaign, as it was the first real signal of the tactics and attitude she will use to take on Trump and offered a preview of what are likely to be fierce clashes between the rivals at a trio of presidential debates later in the year. It demonstrated the kind of sardonic, unrestrained humor that she often shows in private interactions with friends and reporters but has refrained from displaying in public. (Continued: CNN)

 

Posted in: USA Tagged: campaign, campaigning, Donal Trump, election, Hillary Clinton, negative, USA

Tuesday May 5, 2015

May 4, 2015 by Graeme MacKay

Tuesday September 8, 2009Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, Editorial Cartoonist, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday May 5, 2015

Thousands of parents keep kids home from school in sex-ed protest

Parents of thousands of elementary students across Toronto kept their children out of class Monday to protest the sex-ed portion of Ontario’s new health curriculum.

The hardest hit school was Thorncliffe Park Public School, where only about 130 children showed up for class out of the usual 1,350 — or roughly 10 per cent. At nearby Gateway Public School, some 400 students were away, nearly half the usual enrolment. At Valley Park Middle School, some 590 students were absent out of the total 950.

Thursday, February 26, 2015At Fraser Mustard, an all-kindergarten school in Thorncliffe Park, only 90 of 650 students turned up. The sex-ed curriculum doesn’t actually kick in until Grade 1.

“In Grade 1 they should be learning about the ABCs, not sex,” said Thorncliffe Park parent Lubna Awah, who kept her kindergarten son home.

“Boys are boys and girls are girls — why should they learn about a third (gender) in Grade 1?” asked Awah, who said she believes children will be encouraged to question their gender identity as early as Grade 1.

Awah said she learned much of what she is concerned about regarding the new curriculum earlier this spring on a flyer circulated by what she called a “Chinese Christian group,” because she said the school did not educate parents.

The new curriculum, endorsed by a coalition of doctors, educators, mental health experts as long overdue in an age of sexting, easy access to online pornography and a falling age of puberty, includes references to anal and oral sex in the context of warning students these alternatives to intercourse can also be risky because they can spread sexually transmitted disease, yet many protesters said they believe the curriculum encourages such behaviour. Critics have seized onto this, as well as possible explanations about masturbation that teachers would offer if asked by students, as encouraging all these behaviours — something educators have insisted in not the case. (Source: Hamilton Spectator)

 

Posted in: Ontario Tagged: bus, curriculum, education, Kathleen Wynne, negative, Ontario, paranoia, protest, school, sex, Sex-ed, sexuality

Tuesday June 5, 2012

June 5, 2012 by Graeme MacKay

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Tuesday June 5, 2012

Gruesome cases bolster talk about zombies

First came Miami: the case of a naked man eating most of another man’s face. Then in Maryland, a college student telling police he killed a man and ate his heart and part of his brain.

In New Jersey, a man stabbed himself 50 times and threw bits of his own intestines at police. They pepper-sprayed him, but he was not easily subdued.

He was, people started saying, acting like a zombie. And the whole discussion just kept growing, becoming a topic that the Internet couldn’t seem to stop talking about.

The actual incidents are horrifying and, if how people are talking about them is any indication, fascinating. In an America where zombie imagery is used to peddle everything from tools and weapons to garden gnomes, they all but beg the comparison.

So many strange things have made headlines in recent days that The Daily Beast assembled a Google map tracking “instances that may be the precursor to a zombie apocalypse.”

The federal agency that tracks diseases weighed in as well, insisting it had no evidence that any zombie-linked health crisis was unfolding.

The cases themselves are anything but funny. Each involved real people either suspected of committing unspeakable acts or having those acts visited upon them for reasons that have yet to be figured out. Maybe it’s nothing new, either; people do horrible things to each other on a daily basis.

But what, then, made search terms like “zombie apocalypse” trend day after day last week in multiple corners of the Internet, fueled by discussions and postings that were often framed as humor? (Source: Newsday) 


Letter to the Editor:

As a subscriber to The Hamilton Spectator, I am thoroughly shocked at the lack of sensitivity regarding your choice of editorial cartoon for June 5. The situation is bad enough without adding to the tragedy. I would excuse a newsstand tabloid for sensationalizing a tragic story but, not the Spec. Let’s keep black humour to a minimum and off the editorial page. Stick to making fun of our political system, where there is a lifetime of entertainment value.

Mr. R. McEwen, Port Dover

* * * * * *
At thespec.com this week, we posted a video made by a Dutch artist who stuffed his dead cat and turned it into a toy helicopter. With each paw adorned with a mini-rotor, the thing actually flies.

What a world.

At our daily news meeting here at The Spectator, some editors suggested we point our print readers to the online video by mentioning it on the front page, but others thought it simply in bad taste.

Dead pets are a dicey business for most editors (the same way living ones are always a surefire hit) and we are wary of things that would unnecessarily offend the sensibilities of our readers.

But what is bad taste? And is it even news?

In the end, we decided against pointing to the video, but I didn’t receive any complaints about our decision to post it online. In fact, news organizations around the world also thought this “art” was newsworthy.

I did, however, receive many calls and emails from readers about another piece of art that appeared in the paper this week: an editorial cartoon by The Spectator’s Graeme MacKay.

It depicted a man reading a newspaper that was dripping with blood, and the caption: “What’s black and white and red all over?”

Many readers called and wrote to express their dismay, to say the least. A published letter by Robert McEwen summed it up: “I am thoroughly shocked at the lack of sensitivity regarding your choice of editorial cartoon for June 5. The situation is bad enough without adding to the tragedy.”

Some in the blogosphere reacted to this with “what’s-the-big-deal?” comments, but I heard from enough people to know that it was indeed a big deal, for them at least.

Editorial cartoonists are expected to be funny, and often they are, but they do much more than that they comment on the miseries as much as the inanities of life. And they are expected to push the envelope. All good cartoonists do.

Some of the cartoons I’ve found the funniest in my career as a newspaper editor are the very ones readers have been distinctly “not amused” by.

As for this one, I’m not sure. Obviously, I was not amused by it, but I wasn’t offended either. Was it necessary? There is no good answer. It was, after all, a gruesome week for news, and reality certainly was more shocking than the cartoon.

I can’t say whether we needed to be reminded of that or not.

MacKay himself responded to the controversy this way: “No subject should be off the table” for a cartoon, he said, “but there was a definite lack of them” when he was looking for one last week.

In the end, he chose the subject about which most people were talking.

It’s a challenge, to be sure, for editors and cartoonists alike. We try as best we can to be relevant and incisive and funny (if possible) without being too offensive. We don’t always accomplish it all.

And we try to learn from our readers.

Ultimately, everything is indeed news. As for the question of what is bad taste or good? I’m afraid that will always remain a matter of individual opinion.

Paul Berton is editor-in-chief of The Hamilton Spectator and thespec.com. You can reach him at 905-526-3482 or pberton@thespec.com.

Posted in: Hamilton Tagged: blood, bloody, brain, Canada, Feedback, headlines, Luka Magnotta, macabre, media, negative, newspapers, press, sensationalism, violence, zombies

Friday February 13, 2009

February 13, 2009 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday February 13, 2009

McGuinty asks reporters to keep away five feet

It’s not you, it’s me.

That popular break-up refrain appeared to be Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty’s explanation Thursday as he defended his need for some “breathing space” — namely that reporters stand at least five feet away when posing questions.

In his first availability with the media since his office instituted the rule, McGuinty spoke of his “love” for the press gallery, called them “wonderful,” but asked for a little room to breathe all the same.

“I love them like my brothers and sisters, but not even my brothers and sisters want to stand as close to me as they do,” McGuinty said as he attempted to make light of the situation.

“What I’ve asked of my friends in the gallery is that I have a little bit more breathing space.”

The premier tried to claim that he was “fully supported in this by all the people who operate cameras here” until a veteran Queen’s Park cameraman loudly voiced his objection to the premier’s statement.

“There’s a bit of a divide and conquer tactic here,” said McGuinty, “which is obviously failing.”

The opposition parties wondered what McGuinty was “afraid of,” and suggested his new objection to the same close proximity question and answer sessions — called scrums — that he’s participated in for the past five years has more to do with the recession than anything else. (Source: CTV News) 

 

Posted in: Ontario Tagged: bubble, control, Dalton McGuinty, distance, media, negative, news, Ontario, recession, scrum

Click on dates to expand

Please note…

This website contains satirical commentaries of current events going back several decades. Some readers may not share this sense of humour nor the opinions expressed by the artist. To understand editorial cartoons it is important to understand their effectiveness as a counterweight to power. It is presumed readers approach satire with a broad minded foundation and healthy knowledge of objective facts of the subjects depicted.

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