477. Why Is U.S. Media So Negative?

477.美国媒体为何如此消极?

Freakonomics Radio

社会与文化

2021-10-07

47 分钟
PDF

单集简介 ...

Breaking news! Sources say American journalism exploits our negativity bias to maximize profits, and social media algorithms add fuel to the fire. Stephen Dubner investigates.

单集文稿 ...

  • I'd like you to imagine, and this shouldn't be very hard, but imagine you were in the midst of a growing pandemic.

  • A 12th fatality has now been reported here in the United States.

  • Er, doctors saying, we are on the.

  • Verge of a medical disaster.

  • And let's say you want to be as informed as possible.

  • The daily coronavirus death toll in the United States might hit 3000 by early June.

  • The coronavirus, forcing millions more Americans into.

  • Virtual lockdown crisis, could dovetail quickly into a political crisis.

  • And now let's say you are an economics professor watching this news for hours a day.

  • How does the information you are getting add to your understanding of the pandemic?

  • I honestly thought I was going crazy.

  • The economist in question here is Bruce Sacerdot at Dartmouth College.

  • I'm very utilitarian, and I was looking for useful information and hence my frustration, because I felt like it was more advertorial and entertainment.

  • When Sacerdot says he was looking for more useful information, what does that mean?

  • What I would be looking for is, okay, there was this new study done, here's what they found.

  • Here's what this means for the pandemic.

  • Here's what this means for when we can get back to work.

  • But instead it tends to be a lot of angst and bemoaning the numbers, even if they hadn't changed or had.

  • Gotten better, it wasn't that Sassidot wanted to pretend that everything was fine.

  • I mean, this thing killed more people than most of the wars we've been in.