by William Wandersee Jr.

Created on: June 12, 2008

Why is the news never good news? You may as well ask why everyone slows down to rubberneck at a traffic accident.

If you're an optimist, it has the flavor of "there but for the grace of God go I." If you're a pessimist, you might go with a German word - schadenfreude - which roughly translates as gaining pleasure from the misfortune of others.

Whichever it is, broadcast and print journalists know it exists - and the why doesn't matter. The fact that it exists is enough. People will watch or read about death and destruction. There is an old saying in the TV news business - "if it bleeds, it leads."

It is also important to remember that television news IS a business, and it's primary purpose is to make money. Most people have heard of Sweeps, those periods of the year when the merely ridiculous content of most local newscasts steps up to the completely outrageous, but what many don't realize is that the ratings garnered over the sweeps period will be used to set advertising rates. So if the story choice is between a group of teens raising money to help residents of a nursing home or that same nursing home burning to the ground, you'll be seeing flames at eleven.

Another reason the news is never good - bad news is easier to find. Most newsrooms have police and fire scanners, and reporters have connections inside the police force to get the "inside scoop." When a call is overheard about a fatal car crash, a reporter doesn't even need to go - just send the camera crew to get some video, call the police department for the details, and the next thing you know you're listening to the story of the "tragic accident that claimed two lives this afternoon" while you're eating dinner.

This is also handy for the 24-hour cable news outlets. 24 hours is a lot of time to fill, so when great video of a fire someplace you've never heard of comes in, it will be "Breaking News" until the next tragedy comes down the wire. Natural disasters are like crack to the cable news outlets. These events even get their own branding, as a string of tornadoes and flooding becomes "Wicked Weather." Now, you may see the occasional good news story out of this coverage, mostly how a family or a town is rising up from disaster, but it's sandwiched in between a lot of video of demolished buildings and overflowing rivers.

Of course, we have to consider the "chicken or the egg" effect. Do newscasts show bad news because that's what people want to see, or do people watch the bad news because that's all the news broadcasts? It's fairly clear where the media stands on the issue, but it's also fairly certain that if good news were suddenly shown to be profitable, there would be a stampede of reporters to bring us the most up-to-date feel-good heartwarming stories ever captured on video. And would that really make things any better? As one network puts it, "We report, you decide."

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