Title: Ethical issues in the news sector -hidden from viewBy Denise Baden, Southampton Business School, University of Southampton. Email dab@soton.ac.uk

AbstractThis paper presents evidence of ethical issues within the news sector, in particular, the way in which news is selected and presented. There is evidence that the news is becoming increasingly negative, alarmist and that the negativity of news presentation leads to mental health issues such as depression and anxiety and reduced likelihood of positive action. Those who do partake of negative news may not be freely choosing to, but drawn in by the alarmist tone that triggers a hard-wired evolutionary response to pay attention. This study explores the perceptions of the creators of news themselves, news editors and senior journalists, on what they consider to be the ethical issues in the way in which news is selected and presented and what the balance is and ought to be between positive and negative news. It is found that issues relating to the negative bias in news are almost entirely invisible to those making the news. Results indicate that positive news was seen by news editors as frivolous, and negative news as more legitimate. It is concluded that there are ethical issues in the way in which news is presented which are largely unacknowledged.

Key words: Business ethics; gender; journalism; learned helplessness; media; mental health; negativity bias; news; news values; positive news.

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IntroductionWhat is ‘news’ is taken for granted. The fact that news does not exist as an independent object in the world, but is socially constructed according to a set of values is rarely acknowledged. Thus of a multitude of happenings, only a very few are considered ‘newsworthy’. There is a negative bias in the news, such that the majority of news stories cover subjects such as war, violence, crime and disasters and relatively few cover topics such as peace talks, or positive change. A series of studies have revealed that this negative bias can be harmful to us, not just in terms of individual mental health, but also in terms of reducing motivation to take action, leading to feelings of apathy and disempowerment. Other studies have also called into question the extent to which engagement in negative news is freely chosen, thus raising this negative bias as an ethical issue in the news sector, albeit an issue that is largely unrecognized.

This paper presents research on the way in which news is selected, and the effects that has on consumers of news. The aim is to highlight the ethical issues arising as a result of the way in which news is perceived, selected and presented. Then results from a series of interviews with high level news editors and senior journalists are presented and discussed. Results indicate that there is little awareness on the part of those who make decisions on what news the public is exposed to of the ethical implications of these choices. Indeed, these are not even seen as choices, as the issue of ‘what is news’ is unquestioned. It is concluded, that unlike other sectors, where there is greater awareness of the key ethical issues, in the news sector they are largely hidden. Nonetheless they are ethical issues of great societal importance, both in terms of the mental health of consumers of news, but also in terms of how effective the news is in prompting remedial action for the world’s problems.

Literature Review

Professional ethics in the news and journalistic culture Deuze (2005) conceptualized journalism culture as constituting: institutional roles, epistemologies, and ethical ideologies which then subdivide into seven dimensions: interventionism, power distance, market orientation, objectivism, empiricism, relativism, and idealism. There is an epistemological continuum between objectivism (truth is out there to be reported) vs subjectivism (no objective truth, reality is selected) which has implications for whether reality is seen as something to be analysed or simply reported. Epistemology is crucial in this context because journalistic legitimacy is bound up with claims to knowledge and truth (Ekström 2002), a position that reflects a positivistic rather than a social constructivist view of reality (Berger and Luckmann 1991).

The prototypical professional identity of journalists that emerges from Deuze’s (2005) analysis of journalistic culture in liberal democracies is that journalists have a public duty to inform; are impartial and fair; should be autonomous; have a sense of immediacy, and have a sense of ethics and legitimacy. The norm is a non-interventionist approach whereby journalists see themselves as objective, disinterested transmitters of news. This does not necessarily mean journalists are unaware of how their outputs may impact society, but they typically do not consider it their role to intervene. This distinction is illustrated well by a quote from Kate Adie, chief news correspondent of the BBC: “I have to believe that a better informed world is more civilised, more compassionate, more ready to act and to help. But I do not think it is my place to tell the audience what to do” (cited by Allan 2004, p107). More interventionist positions tend to be associated with a counter-hegemonic type of journalism such as ‘peace’ or ‘advocate’ journalism.

Further, journalists consider themselves as a kind of ‘fourth estate’- as key agents of representative democracy, with the news media having a function in enabling public debate

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over topical social issues (Allan 2004). Part of the perceived role of this ‘fourth estate’ is to hold those in power to account, which has led to an adversarial tradition within western journalism. In contrast to many other Asian cultures, journalists in liberal democracies tend to be critical of most assertions made by those in power (McQuail 2000). This norm can be observed in the format of the typical news interview where the interviewer often takes on a role reminiscent of a prosecutor or cross examiner when interviewing anyone in a position of power. Clayman and Heritage (2002) discuss how evasiveness on the part of the interviewees can be a natural consequence of the adversarial nature of many of these encounters, as honest answers are likely to damage the interviewee’s standing particularly if quoted out of context.

Journalists in liberal democracies distinguish themselves from journalistic culture in countries such as China and Russia where media is bound up ideologically with political groups, and the media tends to be ‘loyal’ to those in power taking on more of a propaganda role or uncritically serving as a public relations channel between the government and the public (Deuze 2005). Thus how journalists view more positively framed news depends in a large part on their professional beliefs about the role of the media (Leung and Lee 2013). However some critics view the media in liberal democracies also as propaganda machines in service of the ruling class who contribute, albeit often unconsciously, to the legitimation and cultural reproduction of established power structures (Chomsky and Herman 2010; Edwards and Cromwell 2009). This occurs as the way in which news is selected, framed and presented cannot simply reflect reality, but instead codifies reality leading audiences to accept as common sense and obvious certain preferred ways of classifying and perceiving reality (Allan 2004).

Others such as Bourdieu (1998) have criticised journalistic output for catering too much to market demands leading to the dumbing down of journalism which is contrary to the democratic goal of informing people. Bourdieu claims that the typical media defence that journalist are simply catering to public demand, ignores the possibility that journalists are in fact projecting their own inclinations onto the public: “Because they’re so afraid of being boring, they opt for confrontations over debates, prefer polemics over rigorous argument, and in general, do whatever they can to promote conflict” (Bourdieu 1998, p3-4).

What is news?The focus of news, as its name suggests, tends to be on current events that are considered important, and its emphasis tends to be negative, focussing on events such as war, disaster, famine, crime etc. (Montgomery 2011). There is a clear distinction between how news is understood by scholars, and how it is understood by those within the news sector and the public at large. The discourse within journalism is that ‘what is news’ is self-evident: “Journalists speak of ‘the news’ as if events select themselves. Further, they speak as if judgement about which is the ‘most significant’ news story, and which ‘news angles’ are most salient, are divinely inspired (Hall 1973 p. 234). The idea that news presents a neutral reflection of reality is illustrated by Edward R Murrow who famously stated that journalism ‘must hold a mirror against the nation and the world’ and that ‘the mirror must have no curves and must be held with a steady hand’ (cited by (Allan 2004 p. 65). On the other hand scholars of the news argue that news is not a neutral reflection of reality but rather a social construction of reality: “of the millions of events which occur every day in the world, only a tiny proportion ever become visible as ‘potential news stories’: and of this proportion, only a small fraction are actually produced as the day’s news in the news media” (Hall 1973 p. 234). News is thus not self-defining, it is a practice: a journalistic creation - it is made rather than simply gathered (Philo 2002).

Fowler claims that the criteria for selection of newsworthiness are based on a largely unconscious set of criteria (Fowler 2013). These criteria are an accepted set of news values

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that perform a gate-keeping role, filtering and restricting news output to those events considered newsworthy. The best known categorisation of newsworthiness are 12 criteria proposed by Galtung and Ruge (1965) who argued that the more factors an event satisfied, the more likely it is to be considered newsworthy. Harcup and O’Neill (2001) explore Galtung and Ruge’s categories in light of more recent news reporting in newspapers and note that negative news factor comes 4th highest out of the 12 factors. The reason proposed is that negative news e.g. about violence, death, tragedy, bankruptcy, disasters etc. is more exciting than good news such as royal weddings or celebrations. In addition bad news stories also score more highly on other news values, such as unexpectedness and meaningfulness.

It is not just which events are selected as news that affects what the public perceive, but the way in which news is framed and presented. For example news tends to be reported in an inverted pyramid style which ignores the usual rules of grammar or chronology in favour of presenting the most newsworthy aspects first – typically the most shocking or conflictual aspect of the story (Montgomery 2011). Further focus tends to be on the ‘event’, rather than the underlying context/condition; on conflict, not consensus, and uses facts that ‘advance the story’ rather than explain it (Gitlin 1980).

Negative Bias in newsA multitude of studies, predominantly in the US and Europe indicate that bad news dominates the headlines (Galician 1986; Haskins et al., 1984; Johnson 1996; Levine 1986; Smith et al., 2011; Stone and Grusin 1984). There is also evidence that the relative contribution of news items that are both sensationalist and negative (e.g. about violence, war, crime, disasters) has been increasing over the last three decades (Slattery et al., 2001). It appears that the reason for the increase in sensationalised negative news is in part commercial. A content analysis of news stories over time found that in addition to a general increase in arousing characteristics in news items, this tendency was most associated with commercial newcomers to the Dutch television news market (Vettehen et al., 2010), and similar competitive pressures applied also in a Chinese context (Vettehen et al., 2012).

Effects on perceptions and mental healthThis prevalence and increase in negative news reporting has been criticised on a number of fronts: for creating distorted perception of reality, creating cynicism, causing mental health problems, and for undermining motivation. Television news, which emphasizes the negative has been blamed for the ‘optimism gap’ which refers to the belief that things are worse than they are leading, to a belief that the world is more risky and negative than it actually is. For example McNaughton-Cassil and Smith (2002) report that exposure to television news is significantly related to higher ratings of problems in the nation overall, but not to ratings of problems in one’s community. The authors further report that such beliefs have mental health implications, as increased perceptions of the nations’ problems were associated with anger, depression and irrational beliefs. Similar findings have been replicated by numerous studies showing that the negativity of news presentation can lead to mental health issues such as depression, stress, worry and anxiety (Ahern et al., 2002; Harrell 2000; Johnston and Davey 1997; Potts and Sanchez 1994; Slone 2000; Szabo and Hopkinson 2007), particularly in female viewers (Grabe and Kamhawi 2006; Klein 2003). For example a study of over two thousand respondents from across the globe found that there was a ubiquitous drop in positive mood and increase in negative mood following exposure to a typical US news story. The effects were particularly pronounced in female respondents who demonstrated a startling 38% increase in negative affect following the news broadcast, in contrast to a 20% increase in negative mood in male respondents (Anon, 2015). There have also been numerous studies showing the effect of television news on children in terms of creating fear, aggression and desensitisation (Smith et al., 2011; van der Molen 2004; Walma Van Der Molen et al., 2002).

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Such psychological effects can be more than momentary. For example, Szabo and Hopkinson (2007) reported that the increased anxiety and mood disturbance reported following exposure to the news was still present in participants 15 minutes later, and only the group that had undergone a relaxation intervention showed a return to their baseline levels of anxiety after 15 minutes. Exposure to negative news also plays a role in exacerbating pre-existing mental health conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder (Ahern et al., 2002) and depression (Potts and Sanchez 1994).

Effects on behaviourNegative mental health outcomes from exposure to news is clearly on its own an ethical issue that deserves consideration. However an additional and associated outcome of the negative bias in the news is on behaviour. Social psychological studies have reported that there is a ubiquitous finding that the more negative the affective state of the individual, the more negative their interpersonal evaluations and behaviours are. Thus positive mood on the part of person 1, will create a tendency for person 1 to evaluate and treat person 2 more positively, which in turn will lead to increased positive mood on the part of person 2. The reverse applies for negative mood, a finding which suggests that negative news will have behavioural implications. This is illustrated by a study which found that good news led to positive affective responses which were associated with more positive evaluations of others, whereas bad news resulted in negative affect and more negative evaluations of others (Veitch et al., 1977). A more recent controversial study using Facebook found that reducing the amount of positive emotional content in the newsfeed led to fewer positive posts and increased numbers of negative posts. Conversely increasing positive contents led to more positive and fewer negative posts. This study illustrated the contagious nature of mood and how exposure to positive or negative information affects interpersonal behaviour (Kramer et al., 2014).

Mood also interacts with behaviour in terms of affecting motivation to act. Levine (1986) found in a content analysis of news broadcasts that helplessness was portrayed in some form 71% of news time. She raised concern that this can lead to a condition called learned helplessness (Maier and Seligman 1976). Learned helpless can be paralysing psychological condition typified by effects such as lack of motivation to act, heightened negative emotionality, depression and feelings that any effort is unlikely to lead to successful outcomes. Besio and Pronzini (2014) make the point that the media plays a central role in the diffusion of values and setting of moral expectations. In the context of issues such as climate change, they refer to the media’s tendency to portray issues in terms that focus on drama and conflict as these are central news values. However what might make good ‘copy’ based on news values, is not the same as what is likely to trigger positive action to address such problems. The blame culture can stop progress in its tracks, as focusing on conflict and disaster can cause learned helpessness. This dynamic can be explained with reference to the theory of planned behaviour (Ajzen 1985) and studies have shown that positive examples of behaviour are more likely to lead to more ethical intentions than negative examples (Baden 2014). This occurs as positive examples norm ethical behaviour and increase perceived behavioural control (PCB), which is the opposite of learned helplessness, whereas negative stories were associated with less ethical intentions, due to increased cynicism and lower PCB (ibid). Peterson and Steen (2002) are similarly critical of the news for magnifying stories of violence in a self-serving way to increase their impact. They claim that while this may serve the interest of the networks it is contrary to the interests of their viewers, as it creates a pessimistic explanatory style which leads to apathy and depression. Their psychological analysis suggest that while good news can raise spirits and provide positive role models, bad news creates a self-fulfilling prophecy effect whereby the expectation that things will be bad, leads to passivity and reduces motivation to act positively.

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The interaction between affect and behavioural intentions was amply demonstrated in a study that compared the effect of positive and negative news on mood and behavioural intentions (Anon, 2015). Respondents were exposed to positive and negative versions of similar news stories. For example the negative condition featured a news extract on war in Syria and one on the destruction of coral reefs; the positive condition featured a news extract on peace talks with Iran and an extract on oceans becoming cleaner. As in previous studies, negative news decreased mood and positive news stories increased mood. But the most interesting finding was that positive news stories gave rise to significantly higher motivation to take positive actions (donate to charity, be environmentally friendly, make opinions known etc.) than negative news stories. Another pertinent finding was that in the positive condition there was a significant and strong positive correlation between how positive respondent’s mood was and how motivated they were to take positive action. Conversely, in the negative condition there was an inverse correlation, and the more anxious/pessimistic/sad the stories made respondents feel, the less motivated they were to take action. Open-ended responses supported these findings with comments following exposure to positive stories suggesting feelings of empowerment and being inspired to take action. In contrast, comments following exposure to the negative news stories gave rise to comments reflecting disengagement and feelings of powerlessness.

This dynamic is increasingly appreciated by environmental groups who realise that raising fears about the environment and climate change can be counter-productive, as it is more likely to engender feelings of helplessness which leads people to actively avoid thinking about the issues and less likely to take positive action to address the issue (Blackmore et al., 2013; Carter 2011). It is not just feelings of helplessness that may underlie reduced motivation to act following exposure to news. It has been proposed that when fear is provoked, this triggers an evolutionary survival response which leads individuals to focus more on their own security and demonstrate less concern for others (Sheldon and Kasser 2008). The implications are that the current negative bias and framing of news is likely to reduce rather than increase levels of motivation to address important global challenges such as sustainability, climate change and poverty. This raises the stakes for the planet as a whole of the way in which we present news.

Issue of free choiceAnother reason to consider the negative bias in news as an ethical issue is the argument that it is not freely chosen. There are many products and activities commonly engaged in that can be bad for us in one way or another, but these tend only to be considered as ethical issues for business in cases where free choice is compromised. For example there is high awareness of the ethical issues in industries that make their profits by selling products or services that are both addictive and potentially harmful, and these sectors endeavour to maintain legitimacy by various CSR activities (Lindgreen et al., 2012; Miller and Michelson 2013; Reast et al., 2013; Yani-de-Soriano et al., 2012). There is evidence that consumption of negative news is also not freely chosen, not because of addiction, but due to a hard-wired evolutionary response to pay attention to alarming information (Kamhawi and Grabe 2008; Shoemaker 1996). It has been demonstrated that being alert to risk signals and threatening stimuli is a powerful and almost universal survival mechanism. This seems to be instinctively understood by journalists and news editors who typically foreground the most alarming information in their presentation of the news. This perspective suggests that rather than freely choosing to attend to negative news, individuals may be drawn to it involuntarily.

This evolutionary psychological perspective may help to explain the discrepancy between what consumers of news say they want, and what news they actually consume. This discrepancy was evident in a recent study (Anon, 2015) which found an overwhelming stated

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preference for positive news stories over negative news stories. The justifications for preferring positive news made reference to beneficial effects on mood and being inspirational and empowering, whereas negative news was typically described as depressing and worrying. This makes it hard to understand why a commercial industry would then choose to present news with such a strong negative bias. The explanation may lie in the fact that most respondents also said that negative stories were more likely to grab their attention. Many of the quotes support the contention that negative news triggers a non-conscious, evolutionarily adaptive need to pay attention to threatening information. None of the positive quotes gave rise to the kind of passive, involuntary response that many respondents expressed when describing why their attention is drawn to negative news. For example: ‘Positive news motivate us but negative news always catches our attention more frequently’ and ‘bad news or tragedies just give me an uncontrollable impulse to find out more’. Many respondents also mentioned the way in which headlines are presented that are designed to attract attention, or by the fact it is more dramatic or shocking.

Gender issuesAn evolutionary account may also provide some insight into the gender differences in responses to the news apparent in several studies (Anon 2015, Grabe and Kamhawi 2006; Klein 2003). Kamhawi and Grabe (2008) found that men were much more likely to enjoy negative news stories than female viewers. Indeed female participants showed an avoidance response to negative news. What was also noteworthy is that both news items were about negative events, but the positive stories framed the stories in more positive terms, which reduced the avoidant response demonstrated by female viewers and increased their enjoyment. Kamhawi and Grabe (2008) hypothesised that these gendered responses to news items that are threatening or fear-arousing arise as a result of evolutionary adaptive responses. They argue that due to their maternal role, women are more likely to be avoidant in the face of external threats, whereas men due to their protective role, are more likely to approach moderately threatening stimuli (ibid).

This point of view raises an important ethical issue that the general public are routinely exposed to images of violence, suffering, crime and disaster via the news in far greater quantities than we are evolutionarily equipped to deal with. Yet despite the reported preference for positive news, and negative emotional and behavioural effects of the negatively valenced news, the way in which news is selected, framed and presented is with the effect of involuntarily capturing attention by triggering this hard-wired attentional response.

Another reason for the gender difference in responses to negative news might be that females tend to be more empathic and more prone to experiencing vicarious personal distress at the sight of another’s distress (Lennon and Eisenberg 1987). A typical news broadcast is likely to be more emotionally disturbing for viewers who identify strongly with distress and suffering seen on the news. Indeed neuro-imaging has shown that observation to others’ pain triggers similar regions in the observer’s brain associated with the first-hand experience of pain (Jackson et al., 2006). It also affects the motivational-affective dimensions of pain, which would explain the negative emotional responses to negative news stories that depict suffering. Further, neuro-imaging demonstrates the process of physiological desensitization that occurs when viewers are exposed to media violence. For example Guo et al., (2013) report that empathy to other’s pain reduces after exposure to media violence.

A further ethical issue arising from this body of research is the extent to which current news values and journalistic culture prioritises male values and preferences over female values and preferences. There is evidence that many female viewers see the world as presented through the lens of a typical news broadcast, as depressing, alien and hostile to

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female values (Hobson 1980) yet it was interesting that in Hobson’s study, women did not dispute these news values and rated their female values as of secondary importance. This is an issue that has been touched on by feminist scholars who highlight masculinised practices such as the competitive nature of the ‘scoop’, a reliance on male sources and the male preference for facts over social context which has led to the entrenchment of patriarchal news values (Allan 2004). A study showing that male editors tend to present news with a more negative focus and differentiate more on the basis of gender when assigning stories to reporters than female editors provides support for some of these contentions (Craft and Wanta 2004). Similarly women reporters tend to write more positive news items than male reporters (Rodgers and Thorson 2003) In an examination of the news written by an ex BBC journalist, it is suggested that it is due to the dominance of male journalists and editors that news is framed according to male preferences, and that framing news more positively might attract a wider audience as female viewers will be less avoidant (Whyte-Venables 2012).

Awareness of ethical issues in the newsThere appears to be a low level of awareness of the ethical implications of the bad news bias. From the academic perspective, few scholars have put together the mental health issues, behavioural effects and question over free choice to highlight the consequences and ethical implications of news that has such a pronounced negative bias. An exception is a paper that undertook to present these issues to the Radio‐TV Journalism Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication in 1986 (Galician and Pasternack 1987), which appears to have generated minimal response. The newscaster Martyn Lewis also spoke out on the issue of the negative bias in news reporting, yet rather than sparking an increase in awareness and a necessary debate, his fellow journalists and news editors were patronising and dismissive of the idea of presenting a more positive slant (Bedell 1993; Lewis and Rowe 1994). Yet with the increasing incidence of mental health problems such as anxiety and depression (Begley 2012; Bor et al., 2014; Foundation 2014), and the need to mobilise proactive behaviour change to deal with global issues such as climate change and sustainable development, surely more attention should be paid to the evidence that our current news values appear to be exacerbating these problems.

In the following section interviews with those who are immersed in this journalistic culture and news values are presented. The aim is to explore the perceptions of the creators of news themselves – news editors and senior journalists - on what they consider to be the ethical issues in the way in which news is selected and presented. In particular views on what the balance is and ought to be between positive and negative news. It was also of interest to gain insight into some of the reasons underlying the negative bias in news.

Methodology

To explore the perceptions of those responsible for the way in which news is selected and presented, a qualitative interpretative stance was adopted (Gephart 2004). In an interpretive research approach reality and knowledge are socially constructed by interaction of individuals (researcher and participants) in the specific context. Hence consistent with the interpretive approach, empirical evidence was collected through in-depth semi-structured interviews. Semi-structured interviews were mostly conducted face to face at the interviewee’s place of work, although five were conducted via phone or skype. Interviews took between 25 and 90 minutes, with the majority lasting about an hour. Interview questions focused on the subject of what is newsworthy, ethical issues in the news, and issues related to the negative bias in the news. The list of questions addressed is presented in Appendix 1, although the order was often different due to the direction of the conversation.

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The usual approach was to start out with open-ended questions and then become more focused as the interview progressed. The final paper was sent to all those who gave interviews for their comments. No one reported back that their views had been misrepresented. One interviewee was concerned that his/her phrasing might enable him/her to be identified and show the industry in a bad light. After discussion we resolved the issue of how the specific identifying phrasing could be omitted without changing the substantive content.

SampleThe sample comprised 15 high level interviews from key players in the news industry including news editors and senior journalists from national (commercial and non-commercial), regional news and international news agencies (see Appendix 2). Eleven were from the traditional news sector, ten male, one female. Four interviewees worked for Positive News (http://positivenews.org.uk) which aims to take a more balanced and solutions-focused approach to news. These included one news editor (male), and three freelance journalists (female) who often wrote for Positive News, but had been trained and worked initially in more typical newsrooms. The gender distinction is interesting because it suggests there might be greater tendency for female journalists to find traditional news values problematic, which is also consistent with the evidence from the literature cited earlier. The Positive News interviews are presented separately as the views clearly depart from the views of those immersed in traditional news journalism.

AnalysisInterviews were naturalistically transcribed. The full Jefferson system (Hepburn and Bolden 2013) was not considered necessary, but the transcriber was asked to highlight any notable auditory aspects of the interview such as tone of voice, long silences etc. for those sections that were chosen to be analysed more thoroughly. Some quotes were ‘cleaned up’ at the writing up stage to enable greater clarity by omitting repetition or filler phrases (e.g. ‘you know’, ‘sort of’). However this occurred only in instances where it was agreed by both the author and the independent transcriber that there was no loss of meaning. Where a pause or repetition did contribute to understanding, this was left in.

Much of the content is analysed using thematic analysis (Bryman and Bell 2007), with the key themes relating to the area of interest being the main focus. However in some places, the decision to utilise techniques from discourse analysis was made post hoc. This was because some of the most interesting findings to emerge occurred in the interviews at those moments when it was clear that only some parts of the interviewer’s comments were being responded to. It was this ‘selective’ attention that was one of the most interesting findings from the research and so it was considered appropriate to reproduce these mini sections in full to illustrate the process of social construction as it occurs. Discourse analysis is a broad field, ranging from social constructive approaches (e.g. Potter 2012) to Foucauldian discourse analysis (Arribas-Ayllon and Walkerdine 2008). In this paper, the approach is social constructionist and micro-level analysis is utilised to uncover the constructed nature of discourse within the news sector. There have been some criticisms of the use of interview data in discourse analysis, as it is not natural conversation and interviewees tend to adopt a more theorising perspective in an interview context (Potter 2012). However Howitt (2013 p. 82) claims that this issue can be addressed by the interviewer playing a more active role on the interview so it is more of a conversation and more naturalistic.

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Findings

Traditional news industry

News valuesThe variety of interviewees meant that each had a slightly different focus, for example Reuters as a global news agency tries to avoid preferencing a particular national point of view and mostly packages news for others to use, so they are not responsible for how the final news story appears. The BBC is funded by public money and so has a greater focus on what is in the public interest. More commercial news providers such as Sky News have more freedom as they are not funded by public money and also have control over how the news is presented. Considering these differences among the interviewees, there was a surprising degree of consensus over what key news values were and what the ethical issues are in the news.

…important to give balanced coverage.

…issues around defamation and libel.

…issues of duty to report versus intrusion into intimacy, issues primarily of balance and accuracy

The higher purpose of news was thought to be:

To inform, to make society and the world transparent. Without transparency you have abuse.

Educate, inform people so they can make correct decisions about their life, there’s an element of entertainment in there. I think news is a driver of progress in society

The higher function is to educate, inform to some extent, to entertain, but really about educating, informing, holding authority to account.

There was little dispute that news stories were more likely to focus on negative rather than positive items:

If it bleeds it leads

I think climate change is a perfect example. Do you just report the fact that a river is degrading through waste or do you report a story of something that is happening, a project that is happening to clear it up? The reality is that you might have both elements in the story but there’s no doubt what would be the kind of headline of the story.

In a Utopian world the lead story on the news would be: (thinks) ‘Kids have done better than ever in ‘A’ Levels this year and we’re getting brighter and brighter, year on year’ but of course, ‘A’ level results go up and everybody says: ‘are they too easy?

The above quote is interesting because although this interviewee appeared to fully accept the news values which encompass the negative bias, there is an acknowledgement in the term ‘Utopian’ that this is not ideal.

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The key reason for the negative bias relates to the notion of accountability:

Maybe a school gets an outstanding OFSTED. Would we do that story? Possibly. Would we do the story if that school is in special measures and it’s falling apart? Probably, why is that? Because there’s something about accountability here within the remit we’ve got.

The idea that what is news is self-evident came across strongly in most interviews:

A lot of things are self evident, I mean you know, the war, the fighting crisis currently underway in the Gaza Strip and the Middle East and it’s self evident that people want to know about that.

Q. I’m particularly interested that what’s considered newsworthy tends to prioritising war over peace so you are more likely to talk about in war in Iraq than peace talks with Iran. It will prioritise virus outbreaks rather than where they’ve been cleared up. Do you think that’s a valid criticism of the news?A. It’s a legitimate question. Most of yesterday was war, alright, the top stories, the next thing was a natural disaster and inevitably you have a funny or bright item getting used, that’s really, really popular so unfortunately yes there is a (thinks) greater appetite for things going wrong, unexpected things, than things going right.

One journalist gave an example that illustrates this negative bias in action:

There was a very big story a couple of years ago about two pregnant women who gave birth on Christmas Eve at the same hospital and both died from an infection and one of the babies died and it was all over the papers: ‘Hospital kills’. Three months later we went to their inquest and after all the investigations it turned out that the women had actually contracted the bug from their husbands at home and it was nothing to do with the hospital at all, other than the fact that they’d been ill and they went in. In an hour it became absolutely clear that it wasn’t the hospital all of the network journalists got up and left and they didn’t file a single word on it. It just didn’t fit what they wanted to do about ‘dirty hospitals’ and it was at the time when ‘dirty hospitals’ was a big story so it didn’t get reported. It was an omission. By lunchtime on the first day of the inquest they’d all gone and I was the only one left, we did an interview with the hospital director who said ‘Thank you so much’, because they were desperate to say ‘Look. it wasn’t us’. It was terribly sad but the women got it from their husbands. But that was what happened.

The above was the only spontaneous hint of criticism of the negative bias from any traditional journalist/news editor although there was some awareness that a negative bias may not appeal to all viewers:

There is a danger that with a global channel that you end up picking the ten best conflicts every day and covering those. That’s something that we try and guard against because it can just be a succession of different shots of coffins in different stories and that does put people off and certainly does.

If the agenda is: ‘we’re all going to hell in a handcart’ you run a very, very serious risk of uncoupling yourself from your audience.

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Effect of negative news on viewersThere was little awareness that the distressing content of news might have detrimental effects on viewers, other than in the context of how much is allowable to show to different audiences. The journalistic instinct is clearly to show as much as possible. Most felt they are covered if they offer some kind of warning:

You have to show the reality of what’s happening in a war zone, and in a war, as long as it’s done in such a way that can involve putting a warning to the viewer, us making sure that it’s not being viewed by young children, also that the pictures you are showing aren’t breaching the OFCOM code

Showing distressing images was not seen as unethical, on the contrary the general belief was that it is more ethical to show as much as possible than to restrict what is shown:

It still falls into the ethics of what is acceptable. Some people would say that you don’t show the grim reality of what’s happening in Gaza then you are over sanitising it so that becomes an ethical issue and it’s not just taste and decency.

There was occasional awareness of how the news might impact viewers, but the tone in which this awareness was phrased did not suggest this was an ethical issue on the radar of interviewees. The following extract follows a conversation about the way in which a plane crash had been reported, which focused heavily on the likely distress to those on the aeroplane, and invited the listener to identify with those on the plane as it crashed:

A. If I was going to tell my wife that her father had been killed on that plane I would break that news to her in a very different way than we break news to our audience but that’s not our function. Our function is to tell people what’s going on by visual storytelling and it is painful. It is a stark story. Nearly three hundred people killed in a very brutal fashion is stark. And I believe it’s our job to relay that starkness as accurately as we can.Q. Do you think it is ethical to try and maximise the negative emotional impact?A. Within boundaries I certainly do. It’s about conveying events with power and impact and it’s about punching through.

This quote illustrates how news values relating to accuracy, drama and negativity dominate over consideration for the emotional impact on viewers. In the following extract different news agencies are compared in the quote below (anonymised). The issue of viewer perceptions is mentioned, but the main focus of this interviewee’s concern was again the ethical issue of accuracy: There is a high level of integrity in broadcast media particularly in Britain but company X break rumour rather than break news at times. For example ‘ Russian Nuclear Ship about to explode’ was based on a row between the Russian navy and Russian minister of defence over future of the navy in the Crimea and the Russian admiral was asking for more money to maintain ageing nuclear shops and gave an example of one nuclear ship. That news strap was up there for hours. If you saw that you’d think ‘Oh My God we're going to have another Chernobyl’ Company Y are much more cautious.

When specifically asked if the emotional impact of the news on viewers should be considered an ethical issue, the majority did not think so:

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If that is your metric for kind of: ‘do we think ethically’ about making decisions for covering the news. Then I would say we don’t. That’s not our perspective. I don’t have any problem in admitting that or saying: ‘I think that should be the case’. I think our journalistic ethics are operating on a more practical plane which as I kind of described earlier which surround kind of conduct, truth, balance, impartiality.

The following extract from an interview is presented in greater length because it shows the total immersion of the journalist in the news values, and the absence of any instinctive consideration for the sensitivities of potential viewers, which is discounted on the basis that they are free to turn over:

Particularly in television, if it’s good pictures, that’s a win/win every time. You know, if it’s a building collapsing and we were there, or for example, a bomb exploded in Cairo on Monday as a bomb disposal guy was attempting to diffuse it. Our camera was already in the vicinity having just covered the first explosion. The security forces made no attempt to clear the area so our guy was able to set up across the street and film what happened next. With no protective gear, up steps a middle-aged bloke who crouches down, tinkers for a bit and then boom! The thing goes off, killing him and wounding several bystanders. We aired those pictures. Why? Because they were visually arresting and an important element of the wider Egyptian story and, and this is the crucial point for TV, because our camera was at a reasonable distance the pictures were strong without being lurid, without, you know, lingering close-ups of the poor bomb disposal guy who'd been killed.

Q. But you could see that he had been killed?A. Well no because when a bomb goes off, you have a big flash and then lots of smoke and, in this particular case the bomb was planted under a small wall about two feet high so the body was then concealed we saw him being picked up but he was surrounded by men who were picking him up. There’s always about six, seven men who pick up a body because it weighs a ton. So we couldn’t see, you know it was perfect to put out because it was tasteful.Q. But it was reported at the time, the viewer knew they were seeing someone being killed.A. Oh yes we will always put up a health warning and you’ll hear it on the BBC all the time, you know: ‘this report contains images that some viewers may find upsetting. So we always do that. Any kind of gratuity or nudity, we’ll always stick that out there.Q. Despite that, do you think that raises any ethical issues in terms of distressing viewers?A. No I don’t think so because people are free to turn off if they don’t want to. I mean I think we don’t show enough.

This may appear on the surface like a rather callous approach, but gradually the reasoning behind this view becomes apparent:

A. We’ll put out what we can to the client. But we won’t show close ups of people whose faces have been blasted apart, of entrails on the floor.Q. I just want to get your viewpoint. You said earlier you don’t show enough so are you saying that we should show this?A. I’m saying that we should (pause) no I’m not suggesting that we go that far, but (pause) now, because we’ve all become a bit brutalised since 9/11 we don’t bat an eyelid, suicide bombs, car suicide bombs you know these atrocities happen on a daily basis. So we’ve kind of become a bit blasé.Q. So do you think that’s because we’ve shown too much or too little?

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A. No. It’s not that we’ve shown too much it’s just the nature of what’s happening in the world. I think we need to show a little bit more to just (hesitates) recalibrate people’s kind of attitudes, blasé attitudes towards these things.

This was not the response one might expect, but upon further discussion the roots of this counter-intuitive idea that we should counter desensitization by increasing the stimulus appeared to be rooted in a reaction against the sanitisation of war:

A. The First World War was a new kind of war. Nobody, including the men that fought that had any idea of what that was going to be like. And even though there were journalists there, they sanitised everything and the people back home couldn’t conceive it so then, you know, men folk would come back completely traumatised. And they couldn’t understand it which completely compounded the men’s shell shock. Spin forward to Vietnam which was the first ‘all access’ televised war and things were shown and it turned people against the warQ. So you are saying: In the First World War, people though it was all ‘bang, bang’ but once they saw the horrible images, they came out against it and the same for Vietnam. Now those horrible images don’t work because we’ve become desensitised and in order to get that same anti-war fervour, we need to show even worse images? Is that what you’re suggesting?A. Well in part it is but what’s also probably important is that we need to kind of dig deeper into these stories.

Another reason behind this desire to show the human cost was a reaction against political pressure, often particularly intense during conflict:

A. Look, don’t misread this, I don’t want to suggest that I am advocating that we show blown off heads. But I do think though that we are a bit, we play it a bit too safe at times with what we show. But we definitely have become a bit more squeamish. I mean we came under big political pressure from Washington during the Iraq war not to show images of dead American soldiers. You know, fine with dead Iraqis, ‘we’re absolutely fine with that’ but you know they baulked, Washington baulked at showing dead American soldiers and that’s always a danger when your country is at war.

Another interviewee had also referenced a similar point about the necessity to show the human cost of war:

You’ve got to portray the conflicts, you’ve got to portray the cost, the human cost of the conflicts. There’s a lot of material falling out of Syria which shows fighting and action and tanks going ‘bang’ and things blowing up - they’re actually there and they are nice images to look at. They are visually arousing. You have to also show what effect that fighting has. What you do find very often is that we’re dealing with quite horrific videos shot in hospitals where you’ve got blood all over the place, people in extreme distress and very often you struggle quite a bit as to where to make the cut ‘cos, I feel there is a duty to show that because war is isn’t all about nice trials, plumes of smoke in the sunset.

It is clear from these extracts that the journalistic culture is to show as many shocking images as possible. Not just because these images are ‘visually arousing’ but also to show the devastating effects of war. In none of these interviews did the interviewees show any awareness or concern for how distressing this may be for viewers. After being presented with some of the evidence about the detrimental effect of news on mood, the most common

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response was to refer to freedom of choice:

They turn on, with all due respect. They opt in to the experience. They decide to watch. They decide to read.…My wife doesn’t watch much news, she kind of opts out of it. You don’t have to watch it or surround yourself by it. It’s a conscious decision.

There were references to guidelines and what they can get away with, but it seemed to be self-evident that they should try and show as much as they can within these limits. All of the interviewees perceived themselves and their colleagues to have a high level of professional integrity but appeared to have an ethical blind spot in relation to the consequences of their journalistic choices. This was surprising as several journalists when explicitly asked, did admit that these images were distressing even for them as relatively ‘hardened journalists’. To try to understand this, in the following interview this question was explicitly followed up to try to understand this blind spot. For example in a discussion about the beheadings in Iraq the journalist had to edit the original footage:

Q. So what was the effect on you?A. Oh it was horrible. Really horrible. Horrible. Horrible.Q. So you had to trawl through this footage?A. Yeah it was very distressing not just me but for everyone because, you know, certainly watching anybody being murdered whether it is on screen or in real life, you know, it’s a person and that’s deeply disturbing.Q. Was it something you found hard to leave at work? That you took into your personal life? You know, did it affect you properly?A. Well no it did affect me properly. I started reading just to distract myself and empty my head of all that horror because you know I’d say to X when I got back: ‘Oh God’, you know: ‘it was horrible it was these beheadings and blood’ but I didn’t go into detail. But what I needed to do for myself when I finished work was just to try and empty my head as much as I could of all that horror. Q. You’re a hardened journalist and you’ve seen all this before. You found it very, very horrible. Did you then feel any kind of qualms in actually making those images available to the public at large?A. Well they didn’t see the actual execution because everybody edited those things out. Except in the Middle East where they’d show it.Q. It still sounds like quite a lot came through.A. Yeah. Well. You know. For a bunch of Jihadi’s to behead, well humiliate and behead an innocent Westerner, yeah of course, that really angers people. You know you probably don’t even have to show very much of that for people to just go: ‘that’s just so wrong. That’s outrageous. How dare they?’Q. So do you think that people might get upset at the predominant negative bias of news stories?A. What do you mean negative bias?Q. The tendency to select the most shocking and violent happenings.A. But then arguably, if you look at what is happening in the world. Much of it is of that nature. Do we ignore it? No. Of course we can’t ignore it. I mean we also report on Ebola. You know West Africa is facing the biggest Ebola outbreak in modern times for which there is no cure. You know Ebola is nasty. People bleed to death. It’s horrible. The images are pretty potent but that’s a very, very important story.Q. Well you show wars and Ebola, but not where peace has broken out or plagues have been quashed?

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A. Well we’re showing violence, but as I have explained, we, to a certain extent, sanitise that because we don’t show the worst. Q. There has been some sort of research showing that a lot of people get switched off by violence in the news and it triggers fear, anxiety, depression, worry. Is that something that you think about in your job or is it not really an issue on your agenda?A. No. It’s not really an issue for me. It’s not my role. How people choose to interpret it or, you know, their emotional response to it is not my business.Q. But you said at the beginning that you felt that there was a higher purpose.A. Yes there is a higher purpose.Q. So when you come across the negative consequences of what you are doing is that not also something that you can relate to?A. Well I do find that difficult to relate to because I have always been political and engaged. But sadly most people are not and that’s just the way it is. But ultimately I have no control over how individuals are going to respond emotionally. I certainly can’t start worrying about that either because I am then going to self censorship and that’s a bad thing.Q. OK. Why do you think that’s a bad thing?A. Because then news is being put through a prism. It’s going to distort. I’m going to start to ‘spin’ inadvertently if I omit certain things.

This interview shows many themes key to most of the interviews: A reliance on the fact that viewers can switch off; a knee jerk reaction against positive news as ‘spinning’ or as propaganda or sanitising the truth; an avoidance of considering the consequences of showing the ‘truth’. Also a complete lack of awareness that news has been selected (‘what do you mean negative bias?’). In this interview as in many others, it is taken for granted that bad news IS news. It is notable in all of these interviews how comfortable the interviewees are talking about horrific events, and how quickly the interviewee moves on or changes the subject when more positive items are mentioned, for example how graphic the description of Ebola is, and how uninterested the interviewee is in information about cures.

Similarly the interviewer mentioned in all interviews that bumble bees were coming back, and that there were peace talks underway between the US and Iran. Yet in no instance did interviewees show any interest in these stories: instead the tendency was to hone straight in on the negative story:

Q. We heard a lot that bumble bees were in trouble, now they’re coming back. Is that reported as avidly as bumble bees disappearing? Are they both reported equally?A. Yeah, there’s that type of story. But then you’ve got to get into this whole thing about why are the bumble bees starting to drop away? Why are things like that falling away and then you start getting into stories about is it to do with intensive farming? Is it to do with insecticides, pesticides, is it do to with pollution?

Should journalists care about consequences of what they show?The ‘party line’ was that journalists should just report, they should not be thinking about what the consequences of that report might be: I think it’s the journalist’s role to put the images out there and if people say: ‘this is terrible I want to give money to charity’ or ‘these pictures from the media are so terrible we must appeal’ or ‘this is so dreadful something must be done about it’. I’m not sure it’s the journalist’s role to do that.

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What we’re not thinking about is if we report a story in a certain way it will encourage a certain behaviour and that is good. That’s not how I see myself as a journalist. I don’t think that’s, on the whole, how my colleagues do. We’re not without virtue. We’re not without morality. Actually a lot of the time we are saying: ‘this is shocking, this is a very kind of painful, shocking, have a look at this, you make your own mind up about what you want to do about it.’ That, I think, is responsible and that, I think, is right.

Several examples were given to demonstrate how the general view was that it would censorship to suppress news for fear of the consequences:

Broadcasters from all over the world got in this debate with a couple of French networks which said ‘we are not showing any more videos of burning cars because we don’t want to encourage it’. And the division was pretty much Latin versus Anglo Saxon. Lots of Anglo Saxons saying that is complete self-censorship… actually, you’ve got a massive social problem in your country which is being expressed in that way so, you do, I would argue, show the event in its context.

The reasons given for this relative disregard of consequences were to do with a sense that it might be a dangerous position for a journalist to adopt:

Q. It’s a rare occupation where it is considered central to doing your job properly where you don’t consider the consequences too much. You deliver the news and what people do with it is their own business. Why do you think that is such a central journalistic value?A. I think that if it isn’t then you are contravening other boundaries about ethics and taking sides to a certain degree.

However on a personal level, responses from several interviewees indicated that it was part of their personal sense of job satisfaction that they were in some sense making the world a better place through their news:

For me personally, and can’t talk for [company name], I want people to be more engaged, with their communities and with the world around them and with the issues that affect our lives. I mean Iraq may be a long way away but it affects us here in terms of our foreign policy, our spending, you know, none of us is an island. I think also for people who are inclined, especially when they’re young, to be activists, or politicians or thinkers whatever, news is designed to wet their appetites.

We broke the story about Starbuck not paying corporation tax. That had a major impact. And that also then discovered that nor was Amazon. And then questions were raised in parliament, there were debates about it so that shows where journalism can make a real difference and can affect political change and legal change as well.

One justification for negatively framing news was that it is more likely to promote behaviour or policy change to address important issues, this seemed to be an implicit assumption:

Q. If bumble bees are dying out then bumble bees are coming back – which do you think is going to get more air space?A. If the bumble bee population is in trouble then that is probably going to get more airspace but it’s done for very, very constructive reasons: it’s to tell and inform people that here is an

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animal or a species which is in trouble so we would tend to do that more readily than then say: ‘Good news folks.

Similarly:Q. So you’re saying that focussing on what’s wrong is part of being accountable (news editor agrees), it’s good for society (news editor agrees), it’s in the interests of society; do you think that it is more likely to prompt change for the better (news editor agrees)? By focussing on the failures rather than the successes?A. Yes. ‘Change’ is a difficult word as well. Some of these words you will get me to challenge because ‘change’ is, well what do we mean by ‘change’? If we’re saying: ‘change people’s attitudes’ or ‘change people’s awareness’, that’s a level of change and if you go along the continuum you will get maybe some political change and you will get some organisational change. But all of these things are relative aren’t they? But the whole thing about this is if there’s no awareness, if there’s no insight and therefore if you like, there’s no emotional reaction to some of these stories as well, then my view is, over the years, there’s very unlikely to be any political change.Q. So you want political change and organisational change by raising awareness and raising emotional impact?A. Yes

Awareness of unintended consequences of negative slant leading to false perceptionsMost journalists showed awareness that the negativity of the news could lead to false perceptions, However, this awareness seemed to be there only when prompted, but not at the front of their mind: I think obviously it can contribute to a sense of doom and gloom so I think if you watch the news you would get the feeling perhaps that there are many thousands of people who are killed as a result of violent conflict every day. Actually the contrary is true. Fewer people are killed as a result of violent conflict than has ever been the case.

The bigger issue I find is the focus on one murder or child death or abduction which are individual, terrible, tragic those I find are sometimes unnecessarily mawkish and they skew the perception of the number of stranger abductions and stuff like that which is just the same as it has always been and - they seem overly excessive.

The issue for the journalist here though wasn’t that this was a negative story, but that it was an individual story, and it knocked more global dramatic and negative stories off the headline.

There was often evidence of contradictory arguments, for example in the following excerpt the news editor does show concern for viewers’ responses, which is partly related to the fact this is regional news, with a different demographic. Yet despite saying they don’t want to raise fear about things that happen that are quite unusual, it is also the unusual ones that are deemed most newsworthy:

Q. Do you think that people putting together the news have a responsibility for how it is affecting the viewers?A. Yes, I agree with that absolutely.I will say to somebody here: ‘we’ve got three murders this weekend’ within an area of four and half million people you are going to get murders. Some of those murders are going to be more newsworthy than others. OK, as a journalist that’s a

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judgement isn’t it? So for example, somebody who is walking home from church and gets attacked and killed in a church yard is going to be more newsworthy probably than a domestic that ends up with one partner dying. which actually is not unusual. Why’s that? So you do have a responsibility not to give people the impression that for example, you do not want to give them the impression that it’s not safe to go out at night especially if you are a woman.

A couple of interviewees acknowledged the importance of presenting a balanced picture:

It can be more interesting, diverting, if you focus on something which is going wrong, but you are failing to do your job properly if you don’t report on the fact what is going right…

This was the only unprompted hint of awareness of an ethical issue or tension between news values and accuracy. But it was quickly followed by an oblique reference to the ubiquitous argument that the job of the journalist is to hold politicians to account, and the instinctive resistance to state control: …By the way, when you speak to politicians for example, they will very readily tell you that ninety-eight percent is tickety boo and really wonderful because that’s how they want you to report it.

Although all of the interviewees felt strongly they should avoid political bias, when specifically questioned, there was an acknowledgment that the media can set the political agenda:

A. I don’t think it our goal to set the political agenda.Q. But that sometimes is an outcome?A. Absolutely.

One interviewee did talk positively about the consequences of news reporting in terms of putting issues on the agenda: A. There is a sense that when we get the news out, people will engage with it and policy makers might think: ‘Right. That is an issue. It’s not about controlling the debate or anything like that but you can put it on the agenda.Q. Do you think there may be consequences of setting the political agenda and giving the impression that there is more wrong than there might be?A. Well that’s certainly the case with education isn’t it? Where every time the new exam results come around the focus is always on: ‘they are getting so much easier’ and actually you end up with a couple of minutes to go: ‘well hang on, perhaps we should focus on children working harder, the education system being better and people getting better exam results.’ But people end up focussing on the negative; always when there is good news they try and turn it round and find the negative.

There is inevitably a focus on problems because that is part of the journalist’s job to hold government to account or to hold local NHS trusts to account you are going to focus on where there has been poor management or waste of money.

However the ethical issues of creating a false impression by a negative reporting bias due to its potential effect on setting the political agenda did not spontaneously occur to any

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interviewees. This issue was only acknowledged if the interviewee was specifically taken through a line of questioning. This indicates a lack of ethical awareness of this particular issue rather than a lack of ethical intention. One interview which stood out was with a senior news editor, and because of the very open and reflective tone the interview had taken, the interviewer took the opportunity to probe responses more deeply. It is worth reporting a longer extract of the conversation, as it shows the process of an interviewee becoming more aware of the issues as the interview progresses:

A. So let’s say that there are ninety five hospitals doing well and five doing really badly… How do you report that? Is your headline: ‘ninety five percent of hospitals doing brilliantly’? Does that do justice to the fact that five of them are in a terrible state? Or do you say: ‘five percent of hospitals are killing patients every day’ and somewhere in the story you should reflect that the number is going up or down, things are getting better or worse.Q. Do you think it’s likely to report it if they’re getting better?A. Oh absolutely. It may not be on the front page as I said. I do think the conscience of journalists will not allow them to say that positive story does not fit with my mind-set so I’m not going to report it. I think there may be a decision: ‘we’re going to report this but we may not put it as prominently as we put the negative stuff that we did earlier’. And that may be a commercial decision.Q. So you talked about the focus on what is going wrong in things like education and health. Do you think there’s a risk that this puts these on the political agenda and we have changes to our whole education system again or changes to the health service? Do you think there’s a danger that these changes are based on an inaccurate, misleading view that more is wrong than it actually is? Could that be an outcome?

Here the interviewee jokes that he feels he is talking to a ‘father confessor’ who is ‘putting my conscience through the ringer’ and there is laughter then continues:

A. Yes it could but that may not be the media’s fault. I’d love a government to say: ‘I don’t accept that version of reality’ and I don’t think it happens often enough so you end up that Fleet Street calls the tune and politicians dance. Q. So you’re saying that media is setting the political agenda more than it should?A. Because the politicians allow it to.Q. Do you think there’s a case though that people will trust what the media says because they believe it is objective. Whereas a politician saying: ‘Not that many hospitals are doing badly’ might sound like a cover up and they won’t have the same credibility?A. No there is an element of that and of course the politician can usually only reach the public through the filter of the media so their view may not be accurately reported. But (hesitates) I’m sorry I’ve lost my thread…Q. Do you think it’s fair to blame the government or do you think the media has some responsibility to provide a more balanced view and not just to focus on what’s wrong? Bearing in mind the government’s inability to counter that because it doesn’t have the same credibility?A. Yes. To a degree there is a responsibility of the media but of course the media needs to report in a balanced, objective way wherever possible. Absolutely. Q. So news reporting failing hospitals and failing to report succeeding hospitals when they hugely outnumber them. Do you think the journalists, the editors are aware, are knowingly presenting a misleading picture or do you think it’s just a cultural mind-set that this is actually considered objective?

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A. I absolutely don’t think it’s a deliberate strategy: ‘let’s go out and find the negative stuff on the NHS this week’. There is a mind-set and a culture but I would hope that (pause) It’s difficult isn’t it? Q. We agree the kind of news than goes out has a bit of a negative slant, plagues over cures, war over peace. In terms of the function of news in society, the higher purpose, do you think that serves the higher purpose?A. No I suspect it doesn’t. To portray the world as a place of perpetual conflict when it isn’t is not the right thing to do as a whole.

Reasons for negative biasReasons for this focus on negative events are numerous – it’s not just that war has better images, for example, it is somehow considered more worthy in journalistic terms, as evidenced by the journalists that win awards:

It’s where people make their name in TV news and people who win awards and who gain promotion are quite often war reporting. It’s still seen as the highest form of journalism.

One area touched on was whether the negative bias was driven by commercial drivers. Comments did indicate an acknowledgement and high awareness of commercial interest as the context within which they worked, but it did not appear that this was necessarily (or consciously at least) the driving force behind editorial decisions:

There are commercial aspects to it but it’s not driven by commerce.

Everyone is under pressure, particularly the broadcast media in this age of rolling 24 hour news.

However no one explicitly said ‘we write this because it makes us more money’: Q. Are you saying that part of the reason for the negative bias is that bad news sells? Or that’s what people want?A. It’s not a question of selling. It’s not really a commercial decision, it’s what affects people the most. I’m afraid there’s an element that what TV news is about: powerful pictures and powerful images, human stories and images of conflict that provide the powerful images.

This reliance on powerful images can also help to explain why the stories of peace are generally ignored in favour of stories of war. For example in response to a query about the reason for the relative lack of coverage of the US-Iran peace talks:

It’s difficult to find things to film because these talks are not very visually exciting and covering things where something is not happening, where there aren’t explosions or there aren’t casualties or there aren’t pictures of bodies being taken to hospital are less arresting than instances where there are.

Instead there was a complete immersion and acceptance of news values. This was interesting as interviewees came across as ethical with a personal sense of integrity, but yet a selective blindness on this particular aspect: A. If it bleeds it leads

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Q. Is that driven by market forces or do you think that’s driven by...A. Human interest (definite). We all relate to a Syrian family that's been blown out of our homes. We think what if that was us, what if I had to gather my children and run.

An interesting observation here is that this journalist throughout assumed that all viewers relate to stories the same way. The point was also made that journalist are a specific type of person and are drawn to more conflict-based stories:

It might be that journalists are more interested in that type of story and I include women journalists in that as well. That culture of people who have spent too long in newsrooms and they are interested in war.

Gender differenceThere was no clear consensus on whether there were gender issues affecting the way in which news is selected. Most did not appear to think it was an issue, although some acknowledged that news may be catering more to ‘male’ tastes:

Why do men, myself included, want to watch violent and Mafia things like The Sopranos or The Godfather or something like that? There must be something anthropological that makes us like scenes of violence and stuff.

Men are more responsible for making the news than women at the moment - the makeup of the readership of news groups. And I think I’m sure there is research to back this up, I haven’t done it or seen it, but that men have a more violent inclination than women.

Clearly I am a continental European male and that’s my culture set. You just try and offset that by making sure you are as open and as receptive as you can be to other opinions.

However it is difficult to have empathy with an audience who may have very different emotional responses. The following extract is interesting as it illustrates how the journalist is attempting to judge how the viewer may respond based on his own experience:

That’s what I mean by visually arousing imagery, but somebody below that is actually dying and that needs to be communicated because what I do worry is that, as I’ve said, rockets streaking across the sky and flames and explosions and tanks storming across the desert, there is a risk, it can perpetuate a kind of subliminal message that war is cool or conflict is OK and it’s a grown up version of our kids turning twigs into guns.Q (agreeing) Like a form of voyeurism...A. Yeah. And you do need to show that this has human consequences. How would you like it if your house was blown up or if a rocket landed on your village?

The research discussed in the literature review indicates that women in particular often find these kinds of images so distressing that they cannot bear to watch. Yet the interviewee as a man is more likely to be aware of the potential for finding guns and explosions exciting, but lacks awareness that female viewers may be very distressed by the attention paid to homeless families and crying children.

Views of positive news

Many interviewees had a rather narrow view of what positive news might involve:

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Q; I spoke to someone who ran focus groups for the BBC and she says people are always asking for more positive news, and research found the same, yet people like yourself tell me your audience pay more attention to negative news?A. that’s not necessarily true by the way you know the skateboarding duck cliché, if you look at the most read section, it’s not always about plane crashes, it’s about celebrity, it’s about funny things.

Interviewees had not really questioned the balance of positive over negative stories. In part because the common view of positive news was rather disparaging, for example fluffy animal stories or frivolous gossip. However most did not think there was a problem as typified by the following comment:

I think the balance is absolutely fine but I would, wouldn’t I? I would because I am in a position to determine that. I am one of the senior leaders at X and I have been for the last three years so if I felt we are fundamentally at odds with what we were doing then I would change it. I don’t say that from a defensive position I just say that X to a great extent already reflects my news values. How would it otherwise?

Several interviewees stated their belief that positive news would not attract as much interest:

I think there is an element of a commercial decision here. I don’t think good news generally sells. Clearly newspapers and news organisations must report positive news when they see it. Or ‘should’. But I think if they focused on positive news, I’m not sure they’d be popular. I don’t know if there’s something in the human psyche that drives us to be interested in chaos and conflict and disaster more than peace, harmony and no disaster.

Often when interviewees did mention positive news stories, they were slightly disparaging of the audience. It was interesting that it was a common finding that when an interviewee mentioned reporting a positive news story they often felt drawn to justify it by making it clear they did not personally like them. The inference was that positive news stories were dumbing down.

[reference the royal birth] It’s not my thing necessarily but from a work point of view, much more important for me. Only because people loved it. And that’s the other thing, people might not say they do and my mum being one of them: ‘why are you doing all this wall to wall? Who gives a toss?’ but people are watching it. Royal babies and royal weddings, the audience can’t get enough, whatever my view might be.

Conversely there appeared to be implicitly a higher respect accorded to those who preferred more negative news. For example in a conversation about a story about an execution in the US that went wrong and took several hours, the editor distinguished between different audiences claiming that X audience was ‘tougher and can take it’ while a different audience complained. In particular a distinction was made between online and television news:

I think there is a gap between traditional media and online media. Online media is more interested in the lighter, less serious side of news and that may not be a good thing if that trend continues. I’m not saying there is not a conscience and a high ethical standard but there may be a neglect of some of the more serious aspects of news.

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Interviewees tended to be suspicious of positive news for a number of other reasons too, such as a fear of being manipulated and a common association of positive news with oppressive regimes:

I think journalists worry sometimes about positive news. That sense of: ‘Am I being manipulated’? So they worry about that sense of being manipulated and maybe there’s a sort of reaction against that and how we sort of frame what we do

A. I mean I think journalism is a key part of any pluralistic, democratic society and I think it is a vital component in democracy, that’s why totalitarian or authoritarian regimes crack down on journalists as one of the first things they do.Q. Do you think there is a culture that sees positive news as propaganda?A. Yes absolutely there is but we should be equally suspicious of negative news. It suits certain parties to portray a society or an organisation in chaos when maybe it isn’t or to portray leadership as incompetent when maybe it isn’t so. I mean yes there is a… I was about to use the word ‘cynicism’ but that may be too strong. There is a suspicion in the culture of journalism that trusts good news less than bad news.

Existence of more positive approachesOnly one journalist showed an awareness that news was ‘selected’, rather than self-evident, and demonstrated genuine interest in a more positive approach, although this was a little prompted by the interviewer:

Q. So in terms of health there’s things happening all the time, there’s new viruses that people are worried about, there’s been swine flu, avian flu but there’s also things that have been cleared up so do you think one is more newsworthy than another?A. I think most news is about conflict, crisis, things going wrong. That’s the reality of it. But, the reality of the world as opposed to the news world is that breakthroughs are being made, there are successes every day. The successes far outweigh the failures in the NHS and I think it’s important to balance those stories you do where someone chops the wrong leg off a patient which, you know, does happen occasionally with those stories about a new kind of treatment, a new successful drug, a new way of doing things and over the course of the year or whatever I do I make sure I try to balance up the disaster stories, which happen, with those stories where somebody has done something good like tomorrow I’m filming a story a about a tablet that will virtually cure hepatitis C. Q. Do you think you’re typical?A. No. Not really. Actually. Most journalists are sort of hardwired into the conflict, crisis, failure ‘cos that’s sort of how they’re brought up, and their training but that is not how the world is.

When asked to think about positive stories that were covered, there was some awareness that it was not all fluffy animal stories:

We have a show on X that is all about positive stuff, like climate change and people who are dealing with climate change and the positive side of climate change rather than just endless doom and gloom. So there is some of that and we do quite a lot of other science, tech and health stories which by their nature quite often focus on positive discoveries or breakthroughs and those type of stories. And there are other stories about problems getting

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solved we cover those of course they don’t get as much coverage as you know, war in Gaza, because they’re not as powerful.

Some mentioned how new technologies will make it easier for people to select the news they receive:

I think one of the things about new technology is it does give a chance to be more selective about the news that they get. So they can set up their mobile phones news feed or their twitter feed their web feed to get any type of news they want. They can do the editing themselves in way, if you don’t want, well it’s hard to avoid the stories in the Ukraine and Gaza at the moment, but you can certainly go out there and get the type of news you want and I think people do do that and can be very selective. If people are interested in sport or entertainment they can go out, or good news, may be a more challenging find but they can filter that themselves.

It is interesting in the above quote that there is an acknowledgement that even with personal selection, shocking news cannot be easily avoided, or good news not easily found.

There was acknowledgement of a growing market for less depressing news:

One of the challenges for journalism in the twenty first century is people are turning us off, they are not buying newspapers you see the rise of things like the X online which is not particularly depressing news. Maybe the audience are reacting to a depressing diet of news and turning away to other stuff.

One of the things we tried to do in particular, we put a load of reporters into Africa and said: ‘we’re going to attempt to show that Africa is not just a place of AIDS, war and famine’ and we partially succeeded but it required a real focus on: ‘Let’s look for stories that show innovation, initiative, peace building, positive aspects in society. And we did OK. And of course the whole world has both sides of the coin. But the positive news rarely sits at the top of the agenda. I think that’s almost certainly true.

Positive News sample (counter-hegemonic)This section reports findings from one news editor (male) from Positive News: a newspaper and online news platform that takes a solution-based approach to news, and three freelance journalists (female) who often wrote for Positive News, but had been trained and worked initially in more typical newsrooms. These are shown separately as their views clearly depart from the views of those immersed in traditional news journalism. The gender distinction is interesting because it suggests there might be greater tendency for female journalists to find traditional news values problematic, which is also consistent with the evidence from the literature cited earlier.

News valuesUnsurprisingly it was those who had chosen to distance themselves from the traditional journalistic culture who were most critical of established news values:

I think the perception, what I was taught then. It was quite a narrow framework of what would be considered newsworthy and think there was very much a slant on ‘things going wrong’. For example in the local newspapers that I have worked in it was a lot of it was to do with the local authority and there was a perception that they weren’t spending tax payers money properly and that was a really common story angle. And then just generally people

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struggling with life often and expressing dissatisfaction with society or the hand that life had dealt them.

Many quotes made reference to the general journalistic culture and mind-set:

Of the editors I have worked with, they are not driven so much by sales or choose to do that, they just need to change the mind set about that. It’s mostly an embedded culture thing. It’s almost a bit of a taboo. If you are in a news room and you are trying to say in the morning conference: ‘I’ve got this story about this guy who’s doing this brilliant stuff’ people kind of look at you like: ‘yeah so what? Where’s the angle? What’s wrong?

I think it’s quite ingrained and that’s the way they were trained in defining the news. I don’t think they do that on purpose. I think that’s really just what they believe is news. If you come up with something more positive, they see it as nothing is really happening.

Awareness of consequences of negative biasThe only interviewees who showed an unprompted awareness of potential political consequences of negative news were the freelancers who wrote for the paper Positive News:

I’ve heard many times, politicians complaining about this and saying that they have a hard time producing a viable study or guidelines, or something positive and it’s not picked up and the media just pick up on one tiny piece of negative ones and it makes the whole package look different and it’s harder for them to make it accepted by other politicians and the public. So it’s bad for democracy definitely.

When the media and the authorities lock horns in this way it makes it about nothing to do with the people. It’s not really about change, it’s about very small point winning and often very male horn locking. I always feel like that when watching Newsnight it feels like a barely disguised male punch up. It’s not really going anywhere.

The journalist for Positive News thought there were other consequences of the negative bias too in terms of how people relate to each other:

It’s quite terrifying actually sometimes when you do look at the news with a bit of fresh perspective and how much of a prevalence it has in lots of people’s lives and then just how extreme it is but at the same time how narrow it is in terms of what kind of picture it presents of the world. It just alters people’s perceptions of what’s possible. It introduces a huge cloud of fear over people’s lives even if it’s subconscious and I think it really does impact on people’s decision making processes and the way they view other people. Definitely as well; it breeds suspicion and fear and distrust and separation.

The Positive News journalists were also less convinced that the negative news is preferred by the public:

…they (news editors) believed it would sell more papers or encourage more people to click online. They were talking about the public perception but since leaving the industry I have defiantly question whether that was actually what people wanted to read.

I hear so many people say: ‘I don’t watch news anymore, I don’t subscribe to a paper any more. I don’t read news. I don’t like it’.

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There was awareness of the desensitizing effect of negative news:

The Middle East, that’s almost a compassion fatigue thing – it’s never going to be resolved. One friend of mine is working out there at the moment is working with an orchestra with Palestinians and Israeli people and is constantly posting that despite all this are going on with the orchestra, mixing and all sorts of… It’s only that I read that kind of stuff too that I don’t have that kind of compassion fatigue. If people don’t get that kind of human side of things which is not always only the fighting and the drama and the negative then you do get a dangerous situation where people give up on stories and lose interest altogether.

One talks about how she presented typical stories, but framed them more positively:

I was doing a lot of work with NGOs trying to find ways to present their work and give it global coverage on important humanitarian issues and I have noticed that the image of war and starving kids and everything, I had told that story so many times that I got tired of it and I am sure that the readers were tired of it but editors didn’t want to commission those stories. So I talked a lot with NGOs. I discussed ways to make the story more appealing and engaging and we came to the conclusion that if you present it, not people as victims but as people doing something and also the readers could feel that they could do something there was some hope that they would be interested in those stories. That’s why now I am reporting in different ways. Same issues but I looked at them in a slightly different way.

Discussion

This study revealed that although most believed that they and most other news professionals held themselves to high standards of integrity and believed the news served a higher function in society, the assumption was that negative news ‘was’ news, and there was a dismissive approach to more positive news. The most prevalent justification for this view was that the public need to be informed about bad news so they can do something about it, and that people do not have to engage in the news if they don’t wish to. Typical comments from interviewees for example are ‘viewers are in charge of the remote control’ or ‘they are free to switch over.’

In 1981 Hall (p.234) claimed that “journalists speak of the ‘news’ as if events select themselves.” This observation mirrors exactly the results from this study, indicating little has changed since then. What is newsworthy was taken for granted and unquestioned by all interviewees excepting those associated with Positive News. The other notable finding from this study was the lack of awareness of the ethical issues that emerge from our understanding of how the negative bias in news affects mental health and behaviour. All interviews began with an open-ended question about ethical issues that occur in their profession. It was clear that ethical awareness focussed on issues of objectivity and accuracy. No spontaneous mention was made of the existence and consequences of negative bias in news (excepting the editor and journalists from Positive News).

Although no interviewees spontaneously mentioned the issue of the negativity of news, and most did not think news was unbalanced, there was nonetheless little argument with the claim that most reported news was of a negative nature. It was also acknowledged that the most negative and/or shocking aspect of the story will be the big headline whereas the context which may be more positive is more likely to be in smaller print or on inside pages.

The issue of news worthiness merits greater discussion because although there was little explicit mention of what news is most worthy, there were clearly deeply-rooted

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assumptions about the worthiness of news that went beyond simple commercial considerations to a more evaluative and almost ‘snobbish’ disregard for alternative evaluations which was particularly apparent in the male interviewees. This can be discerned when exploring the kinds of descriptors attached to negative and positive news. News items relating to violence, death, war etc. were variously described as ‘serious’, ‘hard’ or ‘proper’ news. The evaluation of this kind of news as being more worthy is unacknowledged, implicit, assumed and unproblematised. For example one interviewee when describing the different audiences said his listeners are ‘tougher’ and ‘can take it.’ The implicit suggestion is that those who don’t like the ‘hard’ news are ‘soft’, less able, less worthy. This view was not explicitly voiced but nonetheless apparent in the inflection and assumptions made - from the sneer of one news editor when positive news was mentioned, to the dismissive, taken for granted, complicit statement from another ‘that is not my view obviously’ when asked about the popularity of more positive stories such as a royal birth. In that offhand remark was a wealth of assumptions that professionals like us who know and care about the world obviously value hard news of war more than stories of royal births. One can easily imagine a female journalist feeling it would be girly and frivolous of her to admit to holding a different view. This accords with what some of the female freelance journalists indicated – that there was a kind of macho culture – the more gory the story the better a journalist you were. This value judgement is reflected and perpetuated in journalist awards which tend to be presented to those covering the most horrific war stories.

Despite some references to a macho culture in the news, what came through more strongly was that journalists tend to be a certain class of people who are more drawn to war. Thus it may simply be more difficult for them to fully appreciate how distressing images of human suffering will be for those who have high empathy (Lennon and Eisenberg, 1987). For empathic people, it is difficult to observe distress without feeling it personally, so to protect their emotional well-being they are avoidant of such news as far as possible. This does not necessarily mean however that they are uninterested in the world’s events.

Another issue that came through strongly was that timeliness was crucial – to be news it had to be new and happening right now. This is another reason offered why ongoing peace talks were perceived to be less newsworthy than the war in Gaza for example. However the conflict between Israel and Palestine can also be said to be ongoing, but again it was taken absolutely for granted that it was more timely and newsworthy than the US-Iran peace talks. It was also acknowledged that bombs and explosions are more visually arousing. Both are timely, both have important consequences, both are happening but the negative story makes the headlines. When interviewees were specifically asked about the likely effects of a negative bias on the news viewers/readers or society in general, there was a marked reluctance to consider the consequences of their reporting style. One justification offered was that considering the effects on the viewer would lead to self-censorship. There was no obvious self-reflection on whether self-censorship might be a good thing, the presumption was that self-censorship is to be avoided, and that it is the journalists job to report the facts, however gruesome or problematic. The fear appeared to be that if consequences were considered, this may lead to the ‘truth’ not being told, and although this may sometimes in the short term have more beneficial consequences, in the long term it would not. The story of the car burnings in France illustrates this nicely.

Many interviewees made reference to a cultural mindset among their colleagues which reflected quite clearly the categories set out by Deuze (2005). Interviews reflected a journalistic culture of neutrality and impartiality, although critical reference was made to the politically partial or advocative approach taken by some newspapers. This value of neutrality was fiercely held and valued as an important aspect of their role as the ‘fourth estate’.

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Journalists and news editors took very seriously the role they perceived news media have as a necessary watchdog function that holds those in power to account.

Some critics view the media as propaganda machines in service of the ruling class (Chomsky and Herman 2010; Edwards and Cromwell 2009). However if propaganda is the deliberate distorting of truth in order to direct public opinion, this research encountered no evidence of such. Indeed, there was a strong reaction against any hint of manipulation by any vested interests from all interviewees. Nevertheless, this does not mean that as Allan (2004) suggests, news discourse is not the unconscious servant of hegemony perpetuating existing power relations. Discussion of this more subtle claim, although interesting is beyond the scope of this paper.

What did emerge from this research was that loyalty or deference to those in power was seen as suspicious and associated with propaganda and authoritarian regimes. The only dissenting voices in this regard were the editor and journalist from Positive News who were more critical of this adversarial stance, saying that it hindered clear reporting by making politicians defensive and being more like a battle of wills between two stags fighting it out. They believed the antagonistic relationship between the media and politicians was not good for democracy as politicians can’t be honest and open, and are forced into a point scoring exercise.

This identification of their role in a democratic state to hold those in power accountable, seemed to explain the apparent instinctive distrust of any pressure being put on journalists to present facts in a certain way or suppress inconvenient information. This is laudable, but the consequence of this knee jerk reaction against presenting any government actions or state funded institutions in a positive light is that it can lead to a distorted perception of reality. This was an issue that did not appear to be on anyone’s radar unless specifically prompted by the interviewer. The potential ethical issue is that by giving a misleading impression that thing are worse than they are, pressure is created for change that may not be necessary. No interviewees were aware of this, and it took painstaking leading through a series of steps before reluctant admission that this could be the case emerged, but in general interviewees tended to slide away from such questions by changing the subject. The example of the news setting the agenda e.g. in terms of hospitals and schools illustrates this point. The interviewee acknowledged that the way the news reported performance of schools and hospitals did give a misleading impression but countered this by saying it was the job of the government to stand up for their point of view and give broader statistics. However, when prompted s/he had to acknowledge that politicians would not have the perceived objectivity and credibility of the ‘objective’ news media and so it would just look like party political posturing and be greeted with cynicism.

Another factor proposed by Deuze (2005) is market orientation – the extent to which the media prioritises commercial interest or its role as to provide information in the public interest. Throughout there was a high level of commercial awareness although there was little in the interviews to suggest that there was a conflict between these two values. No one said they had to report things one way for commercial interest even though it went against their perception of their role as social actors providing important information. The only time this did come across was in the interview with the freelance journalists who contributed also to Positive News. But even then, they thought the commercial motive was not uppermost, but simply part of the equation. These results do not mean that commercial drivers are not playing a key role in directing journalistic activity, simply that the interviewees did not perceive any great tension between these drivers and their own values. Most interviewees seemed to be more comfortable discussing disasters and war, and felt these were intrinsically more worthy subjects to present than positive change. It was not possible to discern how far this institutionalised journalistic norm derives from commercial pressures.

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Deuze (2005) talks about two dimensions of epistemology and the existence of a continuum ranging from the objective to a subjective view of reality. The interviews strongly reflected an objectivist stance. Although there was some acknowledgement that news is selected, there seemed to be a low level of awareness of the extent of that selection. The implicit assumption was that war WAS news, a hospital failing WAS news. There seemed to be no conscious awareness that peace could also be considered news. So although there is an admission of selection, in reality the interviews give the impression that it is rarely reflected upon and that journalists proceed as if what was truth is objective and what is news, is an established fact. Only for those who set themselves up against this paradigm is there a more considered reflection of what news is or could/should be.

The lack of conscious awareness of the extent to which only a subset of information is selected as news is nicely illustrated by the difference in how interviewees responded to the bad news of bumble bees disappearing and the good news that they were making a comeback. When the stories about bumble bees disappearing came up, interviewees were eager to mention that they had extensively covered this topic and also reported causes, context etc. Yet none of the interviewees were aware that bees were making a comeback. When this welcome fact was pointed out by the interviewer, interviewees expressed at best a mild, but disinterested surprise, and at worst, completely ignored it. The way in which this good news seemed not even to be properly heard or registered suggests that when new information is presented that does not fit a preconceived idea of what news is, no attention is paid to it. Thus a positive story like this is not being consciously rejected as news – rather it has not even reached the level of awareness that it could be news. The issue of bumble bees is highlighted as an example because it so closely presents a mirror image of the bad news i.e. a report came out saying bees were in peril – big news. A report comes out saying they have recovered – not news. The consequence is that the public remains ignorant that they now have less to fear.

Ethical analysisIn the longer sections of the interviews, it becomes apparent how difficult it was to unearth hidden assumptions as so much was accepted as given. This made it difficult to problematize taken for granted practices that upon a more critical viewing, reveal themselves to have some quite serious ethical issues. A reminder of the ethical issues emerging from the evidence presented in the literature is pertinent. The ethical problem is that classic news stories give rise to negative emotional responses that have mental health implications. A negative bias typically leads to feelings of powerlessness and reduced motivation to take positive action to address societal problems. Stated preferences are for positive news, and those who do partake of negative news may not all be freely choosing to, but drawn in by the alarmist tone that prompts us to pay attention. Those who do not want to consume the news are nonetheless involuntarily exposed to the headlines which are hard to escape. The news may provide context and positivity further into the story, but it is clear that the most shocking news is foregrounded, so we are at risk of exposure to it every time we pass a newspaper stand, turn on the radio, or turn on the television whether we like it or not. Our brains were not designed to process the whole of the world’s horrors, selected and framed to present the most shocking and horrifying picture of the world, and so it is no wonder that many turn off and that those that do engage with it experience anxiety, worry and depression.

The justification was that negative news ‘was’ news, that this is what the public wants, and that negative news stories were more likely to encompass factors that are considered news worthy. When evidence was presented to interviewees about the stated preference for positive news, the rejoinder was usually that what people say they want, is not what they actually choose. No interviewee was aware of the research suggesting attention to negative news may be an involuntary response. The online news editor was in the position to

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know exactly what readers are drawn to as it is possible to see which stories are most accessed. The readership of the online news was mostly male and presenting news content based on what is popular appeared unproblematic to the news editor. In part this seemed to be because the most negative items such as plane crashes were the most popular, and clearly considered by the interviewee (male) to be more newsworthy.

If the public get what the public want, can this ever be seen as an ethical issue? To address this question, an analogy with the food industry is helpful. There are concerns that the high level of sugar and fat in processed food is bad for health, and is directly related to an increasing prevalence of diet-related diseases such as diabetes and obesity. An additional problem is that the hard wired evolutionary drive to consume this kind of food is no longer adaptive in a world where such food is constantly available. It is beyond the scope of this paper to argue what the response to such tensions should be, but simply to point out that it is unlikely that a food manufacturer would believe their company is being actively ethical by increasing the amount of fat and/or sugar in their product. This is in stark contrast to the news industry. Evidence strongly indicates that consumption of news with a high negativity content is associated with mental health problems and apathy. Again consumption of such negative news is associated with an evolutionary response that is no longer so adaptive. Yet those producing such news believe they are doing right. Indeed it was mentioned several times that the highest journalist awards and accolades go to those journalists who have reported the most shocking and distressing stories. An additional issue is that, unlike food which is consumed voluntarily, it is almost impossible not to be exposed to the most shocking and distressing happenings in the world, as these are the aspects of the stories that are most prominently foregrounded, with the conscious aim of capturing attention.

To further problematize and highlight the absurdity of our presentation of news, it is useful to shake up taken for granted assumptions by making an analogy in a different context. If it is assumed that a business is expected to show care for its customers, one might ask how one would break bad news to someone one cares about while not compromising the ‘truth’? For example the topic of how the news portrayed an air crash came up in a couple of interviews. The news would be broken gently, care would be taken to underplay the most horrific and disturbing elements, and also to highlight any cause for optimism or any positive side. One would refrain from emphasising the harm and suffering, and where possible, without compromising truth, emphasise where less suffering that may have been imagined occurred (e.g. it happened so quickly, they were unlikely to have even been aware of it’). Now this goes against all journalistic conventions, and indeed may well be greeted with an instinctive scepticism from the public too. We all have assumptions about what news is and how we expect it to be presented, and the idea that both of these elements serve an important higher function in society. But let us examine what our objections to this approach might be. If it is that we need to know the gory details to prompt us to take action – evidence shows that a gentler more positive approach is more likely to achieve this. Is it to hold those in power to account? It is hard to see how this justification applies in this case. It may not be consciously acknowledged, but I would argue that the standard self-interest versus societal interest conflict is in play here, but hidden by the taken for granted notions of what news is and should be. These assumptions need challenging because the consequences matter hugely. Increasing mental health issues are imposing social and economic costs upon society. In addition, bearing in mind the serious behavioural changes necessary to address climate change and sustainability challenges, we should be paying much greater attention to how media either encourages or provides a barrier to positive action. Issues of compassion fatigue and apathy in response to negative news was freely acknowledged by the interviewees, yet failed to prompt consideration of a more positive approach.

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ConclusionIt is concluded that there are serious ethical issues in the way in which news is typically presented which are largely unacknowledged. In contrast to typical business ethics failures when the wrongdoers are usually at least partly conscious that their actions are not wholly virtuous, the ‘wrongdoers’ in this case believe they are doing right. Results suggest an industry populated by journalists and news editors with a high level of professional integrity and adherence to journalistic norms. However this is also coupled with an ignorance of research pertaining to effects of negative bias, an instinctive backlash against propaganda leading to suspicion of any positivity and a devaluation of non-conflict-related news items as frivolous or ‘soft’. Ethical issues were seen as relating to deliberate distortions of reality or bias, and there was little reflection on the more unconscious bias and its consequences. Indeed an instinctive reluctance was observed in the interviewees to reflect too deeply on the consequences of what and how news was being reported. There are few walks of life where a refusal to consider the consequences of one’s career outputs is considered ‘a good thing’ – the military is the only example that comes to mind, whereby soldiers could not do their jobs so effectively if they were to consider more deeply the consequences of their actions. There appears to be a similar mind-set here. News editors and journalists did not seem to be ignoring consequences because they were unethical, rather it was a culturally engrained mind-set borne out of their perception of their role as watchdog. However, although well–intentioned, I would argue that any occupation that takes this position has an ethical duty to continually reassess and interrogate these values in light of societal needs. In this paper I take the opportunity to do so and argue that perhaps the backlash against political pressure has pushed journalism too far in the other direction.

It is hoped that this paper will help to bring to light the ethical issues associated with the way in which news is selected and presented and prompt further reflection and discussion on how these issues can be addressed. For example, new movements such as the Constructive Journalism Project are exploring ways in which news can stay true to its purpose to inform, without engendering feelings of helpless, anxiety or depression. Bearing in mind the gender differences noted, it may also be fruitful to explore a gendered perspective on whether the adversarial tradition within liberal democracies more generally reflects values of competition and conflict that are both alienating to female values and increasingly a barrier to constructive progress.

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Appendix 1 Interview questions for news study

1. What ethical issues do you think arise in journalism and presentation of news?2. Are you aware of any codes of conduct applicable to your industry?3. If so how did you become aware of them, and do you think they are adhered to?4. Do they reflect your personal values and reasons for being in this profession?5. What motivates you personally when choosing what to focus on and how to present

it?6. Do you think your motivations are typical of others in the news industry?7. What are the most important functions of news for society?8. What is your idea of what news is for and why?9. What do you think about the concept of positive news or ‘good news’? 10. What do you think about the current ratio of good and bad news stories (good and bad

in the sense of happy vs. sad)11. What do you think the consequences of a greater percentage of positive/good news

stories would be on the viewers/readers?12. Do you think there are ethical issues in presenting a negative view of the world?13. What do you hope that the consequences of typical news stories (e.g. war, disasters,

political scandals etc) will be on the viewers/readers?14. Do you think the negative bias in the news affects the political agenda – e.g.

hospitals/schools? 15. Do you believe that bad news sells?16. Do you believe that viewers/readers would prefer more positive news stories?17. How have you reached your views on all of these questions? For example through

your degree course, your training on the job, through conversations, research, gut instinct etc?

18. How has your job affected you personally, and how do you personally respond to the news?

19. Any gender issues? Is it a male dominated industry20. Do you think the news equally reflects men and women’s interests?21. Explain my findings – ask if this changes their opinion on what should be reported as

news.

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Appendix 2 – Sample

News editor of Reuters (international news agency, commercial)

2 senior journalists from Reuters (international news agency, commercial)

Senior journalist from Al Jazeera (international, commercial)

Senior journalist from Sky News (international, commercial)

News editor from BBC Radio 4 news (UK national, non commercial)

Head of BBC online news (UK national, non commercial)

News editor from regional BBC (UK regional, non-commercial)

Journalist from regional BBC (UK regional, non-commercial)

Journalist from regional commercial news (UK regional commercial)

News editor from Positive News

4 freelance journalists (three wrote regularly for Positive News)

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