Comments on: Bad news sells. Is social media changing this?

By: Greg London

Greg London — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 02:47:11 +0000

I would say that social media sites do affect the news. Bad publicity is better than no publicity.

By: Wendy McAuliffe

Wendy McAuliffe — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 14:39:06 +0000

Thanks Danny and Jon for very insightful comments.

It’s by no means a fully formed theory and you make good points about bloggers.

I’m not disputing that bad news sells, but suggesting that we now have a more balanced view of the world’s news available to us.

Ever the optimist, my thinking is merely that people are chosing to read more good news nowadays than they might have been able to prior to social media.

By: Jon Clements

Jon Clements — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 13:24:41 +0000

Wendy
Interesting post.
While I agree with you that bad news is the time-worn formula for the mainstream media, I don’t think bloggers are necessarily benign targets for PR people to bombard with “good” news.
Regardless of formal training, if a blogger becomes influential enough to attract the attention of the PR industry, I believe that blogger will start to behave like a publisher/editor and exercise their own brand of quality control. Though it might not involve an emphasis on “bad” news, it will certainly emphasise relevance.
And where the journalist of yesteryear may have grumbled when receiving irrelevant, PR puff, the blogger has the facility to grumble while naming and shaming the PR offender online.

So, yes, bloggers are different, but any blog worth being on will have standards.

By: Danny Whatmough

Danny Whatmough — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 13:03:08 +0000

It’s an interesting theory Wendy, but not totally sure it holds up.

There is a reason why bad news sells - the public like reading about it. And you only have to look at the recent ‘bad news’ stories that rocketed through the social web to see that this is the case online too (John Terry et. al.).

I also think that rather than being unbiased, you find that most bloggers are likely more biased than trad journalists. Yes, they might offer a counter view, but this is likely to be fueled more closely by their own experiences.

I don’t think any of this is necessarily bad, it’s just the way it is.

Recent stats also suggest that c.80% of content that is circulated or created on the social web took its original source from a traditional news outlet.