Translation from English

Thursday, December 4, 2014

"Good News" Doesn't Sell> This is News? from the BBC

Inspired as always, Putin has pushed a "Good News" outlet...

But Viktoriya Nekrasova  has found to her dismay that not that many people are interested in her "happy talk" line...

As I said, this is news?

Other people have noticed that it is not simply Bad News which gets attention, there is always too the "Man Bites Dog" angle, or  just plain gossip ( and slander).

I guess when people want good news of various kinds they turn to columnists and to the Comics.

Though Gary Larson and many of The New Yorker's cartoons have an edge to them that is not exactly smooth "happy face" Facebook stuff.

Anyway, back to the BBC's story of Viktoriya's lament:


Russia: 'Good news day' decimates website's readership


A man buying a newspaper from a self-service machine in MoscowBad day for good news: Readers of one Russian news site were unimpressed with happy headlines
There's a reason why so many local newspapers focus on crime and accidents - and a website in southern Russia has found out the hard way. 
The City Reporter, based in Rostov-on-Don, says it lost two-thirds of its readers after deciding to publish only good news for just one day. "Do you feel like you are surrounded by negative information? You don't want to read the news in the morning?" the website had asked its readers. "Do you think good news is a myth? We'll try to prove the opposite tomorrow!" On 1 December, as promised, the website carried only positive headlines. "No disruption on the roads despite snow," declared one. Another announced that an underpass would be built in time for Victory Day. 
But as uplifting as they were intended to be, the good news stories sent readership numbers plummeting. "We looked for positives in the day's news, and we think we found them," wrote deputy editor Viktoriya Nekrasova on Facebook. "But it looks like almost nobody needs them. That's the trouble." The following day, the City Reporter decided to return to more reliable staples: car crashes and burst water pipes.
Use #NewsfromElsewhere to stay up-to-date with our reports via Twitter.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Please leave a comment-- or suggestions, particularly of topics and places you'd like to see covered