Bad news trumps good

Last week, Federal News Radio had two transition-related stories on the same day. Actually, they were both heavy on speculation about your future under the Trump administration, rather than actual facts. And that’s not unusual for Washington-based ‘news.’

As far as attracting readers, the two columns ran neck-and-neck, trading places all day as the number-one and number-two stories that day. While the differences were small, only a couple hundred hits, the bad news won the derby. First one was on top, then the other overtook it. That went on all day. But the dire forecast for feds under Trump beat the other one by 543 reader hits. That’s not a surprise to most people in the media, as you may have long ago figured out.

The top-drawing column predicted the new Congress would freeze federal pay in 2017 and generally beat up on civil servants. If the past is a predictor, that’s a very good, educated guess. After all, there were three pay freezes during the eight years of the Obama administration, two of them proposed by a White House panel. Here’s the ‘bad’ news story, if you want to read it in full.

Coming in at number two that day was a story that said, in effect, wait a minute. These are early days. Past predictions about Donald Trump were mostly wrong. At least so far. So it is possible that things won’t be as bad as some folks say — those who predicted he would lose the nomination, then the White House, were off. A lot. Here’s the ‘good’ news story, if you want to read it in full.

But the facts are that whichever prediction turns out to be correct (gloom-and-doom vs. cool-your-jets), most of the time bad news or forecasts trumps good. The media has known this since the first newspaper was chiseled on a stone tablet 14,000 years ago. The first headline was probably something like SABERTOOTH EATS GUY IN NEXT CAVE rather than LOCAL CAVEWOMAN FINDS NEW FLOWER!

The point is that all things being equal, a story about the horror of the barbarians being at the gates will usually outdraw one which says maybe life under the Huns won’t be so bad! Which sort of makes sense.

Bad news — there is a tsunami heading toward your town — is valuable news. If true.

Good news on the other hand — Uncle Vinnie, the one who smells funny and walks around with his bathrobe open — won’t be spending Christmas with the family next year. While that is happier by nature, it isn’t as necessary or interesting as a warning or prediction of bad things to come.

All of the above probably means you are moving into a situation where bad news/speculation will get much if not most of your attention. Remember the old tabloid mantra: IF IT BLEEDS IT LEADS. Some things never change.

Nearly Useless Factoid

By Jory Heckman

An adult giraffe has hooves the size of dinner plates — approximately 12 inches in diameter.

Source: Animal Corner

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