News editors decide what to broadcast on television and what to print in newspapers. What factors do you think influence these decisions? Do we become   used to bad news? Would it he better if more good news was reported?

　　Model Answer:

　　It has often been said that. Good news is bad news. Because it does not   sell newspapers. A radio station that once decided to present only good news   soon found that it had gone out of business for lack of listeners. Bad news on   the other hand is so common that in order to cope with it, we often simply   ignore it. We have become immune to bad news and the newspapers and radio   stations are aware of this.

　　While newspapers and TV stations may aim to report world events accurately,   be they natural or human disasters, political events or the horrors of war, it   is also true that their main objective is to sell newspapers and attract   listeners and viewers to their stations. For this reason TV and radio stations   attempt to reflect the flavour of their station by providing news broadcasts   tailor-made to suit their listeners’ preferences. Programmes specialising in pop   music or TV soap operas focus more on local news, home issues and up-to-date   traffic reports. The more serious stations and newspapers like to provide so   called objective news reports with editorial comment aimed at analysing the   situation.

　　If it is true, then, that newspapers and TV stations are tailoring their   news to their readers. and viewers’ requirements, how can they possibly be   reporting real world events in an honest and objective light? Many radio and TV   stations do, in fact, report items of good news but they no longer call this   news. They refer to these as human interest stories and package them in   programmes specialising, for instance, in consumer affairs or local issues. Good   news now comes to us in the form of documentaries the fight against children’s   cancer or AIDS, or the latest developments in the fight to save the planet from   environmental pollution.