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Tuesday November 1, 2022

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) 

 

Saturday April 1, 2017

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday April 1, 2017

Swedish, Norwegian newspapers to ditch April Fools’ stories amid ‘fake news’ concerns

As scheming jokesters across the globe prepare their April Fools’ pranks, Swedish and Norwegian newspapers have announced they won’t be taking part in the fun, over fears that silly stories might be spread as “fake news.”

January 24, 2017

Swedish newspapers Dalarnas Tidningar, Hallpressen, Vasterbottens-Kuriren, Smalandsposten, and Jonkopings-Posten are among the publications which say they’re going to suppress their inner trickster this year.

“Historically, we’ve had super successful April Fools jokes. But because of debates and discussions about the media’s credibility being connected to fake news, we didn’t want to do it this year,” Ingvar Naslund, editor-in-chief at Vasterbottens-Kuriren, told TT news agency.

Smalandsposten’s editor-in-chief, Magnus Karlsson, also said he doesn’t want the newspaper’s good name to be “spread with a potentially viral and erroneous story.”

“We work with real news. Even on April 1st,” he said.

March 1, 2017

Erik Berger, editor-in-chief at Jonkopings-Posten, said his paper will be publishing an article on April Fools’ Day as to why it isn’t participating in the international day of pranks.

Media outlets in neighboring Norway have expressed similar sentiments, including public broadcaster NRK, Aftenposten, VG, and Dagbladet.

NRK also reported that local newspapers would follow suit.

One of those local papers is Bergens Tidende, whose editor Oyulf Hjertenes told NRK that it would be a “mistake on our part” to publish jokes on April 1, considering the current climate in which “false news is spreading.”

Meanwhile, the publishing editor of local paper Drammens Tidende said that “what is written in Drammens Tidende must be true,” AFP reported.

“Fake news” has become a household term since gaining the spotlight in the 2016 US Presidential election, with some claiming it helped propel President Donald Trump to victory. (Source: RT) 

 

Tuesday November 13, 2012

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Tuesday November 13, 2012 Some Light Reading Canadians are slowly losing trust in Parliament and political parties,Êand share some of the toughest views in the American hemisphereÊabout their national leader, according to a new 26-country survey. The survey by The Environics Institute, part of an investigation intoÊpolitical attitudes in 26 countries in the Americas, found thatÊCanadians have been shedding some of their optimistic and positiveÊviews on politics and government The survey found only 16 per cent of Canadians place Òa lot of trustÓÊin their Prime Minister, putting Stephen Harper near the bottomÊamong all leaders in the Americas. ÒIn an international context, Harper has a lower level of trust thanÊalmost every other national leader in the hemisphere,Ó Mr. NeumanÊsaid. The levels of trust are also low for the Canadian Parliament (17 perÊcent), political parties (10 per cent) and mass media (6 per cent). TheÊfindings come after Canada lived under a series of minorityÊgovernments from 2004 to 2011, fuelling a sense of growing partisanÊbickering in Ottawa.Ê(Source: Globe & Mail)Êhttp://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/harper-among-least-trusted-leaders-poll-shows/article5187774/ Meanwhile, less than two years after lovelorn fans were first forcedÊto accept that young pop superstars Justin Bieber and Selena GomezÊwere a romantic couple, their followers are reeling at news the pairÊare no more. After weeks of rumours the couple was on the outs, E! NewsÊreported Friday that the teen pop stars broke up in recent days. TheÊAssociated Press confirmed the split on Saturday, citing anÊanonymous source not officially authorized to speak about theÊcouple's relationship status.(Source: CTV News) http://www.ctvnews.ca/entertainment/justin-bieber-and-selena-gomez-have-split-reports-1.1032730#ixzz2C7420f8p Canada, poll, trust, Stephen Harper, newspaper, tenet, bar, tavern, milk, Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez, Justin Tr

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, Tuesday November 13, 2012

Some Light Reading

Canadians are slowly losing trust in Parliament and political parties, and share some of the toughest views in the American hemisphere about their national leader, according to a new 26-country survey.

The survey by The Environics Institute, part of an investigation into political attitudes in 26 countries in the Americas, found that Canadians have been shedding some of their optimistic and positive views on politics and government

The survey found only 16 per cent of Canadians place “a lot of trust” in their Prime Minister, putting Stephen Harper near the bottom among all leaders in the Americas.

“In an international context, Harper has a lower level of trust than almost every other national leader in the hemisphere,” Mr. Neuman said.

The levels of trust are also low for the Canadian Parliament (17 per cent), political parties (10 per cent) and mass media (6 per cent). The findings come after Canada lived under a series of minority governments from 2004 to 2011, fuelling a sense of growing partisan bickering in Ottawa. (Source: Globe & Mail)

Meanwhile, less than two years after lovelorn fans were first forced to accept that young pop superstars Justin Bieber and Selena Gomez were a romantic couple, their followers are reeling at news the pair are no more.

After weeks of rumours the couple was on the outs, E! News reported Friday that the teen pop stars broke up in recent days. The Associated Press confirmed the split on Saturday, citing an anonymous source not officially authorized to speak about the couple’s relationship status.(Source: CTV News)

 

Monday September 10, 2012

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator, 

NDP win byelection, blocking Liberal majority

New Democrat Leader Andrea Horwath is all smiles today after her party won one of two byelections that blocked the Liberals from a majority government.

Catherine Fife won the riding of Kitchener-Waterloo, which had previously been held by the Progressive Conservatives for 22 years.

Tory Leader Tim Hudak is complaining the unions “bought” the riding for the NDP, but Horwath dismissed it this morning as sour grapes.

Hudak says he takes responsibility for the loss, but says his party was beat by campaign muscle on the ground.

Horwath acknowledges that Fife got the “Cadillac of campaigns” with the party pulling in all their resources to get her elected, including 700 volunteers.

But Horwath says the voters of Kitchener-Waterloo voted for a strong woman who will listen to their concerns.

She suggested today that the win hasn’t emboldened her to try and topple the minority Liberals, who’ll need the help of one of the other parties to pass legislation.

McGuinty engineered the byelection by appointing veteran Tory Elizabeth Witmer to a $188,000-a-year post as head of the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board, convincing her to give up the seat she’d held for 22 years.

Backed by support from teachers and public sector workers angry with the Liberals for imposing a two-year wage freeze, Fife came from behind to take the riding about 170 kilometres southwest of Toronto for the first time in the party’s history. (Source: Global News)