The System that Fuels Media Negativity 

"Your brain is designed to keep you alive, not keep you happy" is one of the most poignant phrases I've ever been told

"Negativity bias is in the media is rampant, and it's getting worse." Now _this_ is the kind of news that draws me in!

Sam made a positive year news video and asked himself why it didn't gain that much traction, so he started to question human evolution 😂 (very good video)

The problem with negative news is that it rarely informs the people on what they can do to help

This is such an important philosophy in the age of information. It's so important to be aware of to avoid getting caught in the cycle of negativity so prevalent in our culture.

In terms of writing you guys really outdid yourselves. What a beauty of an essay

I've never felt better since I stopped passively consuming the news! Most people don't realize what a toll the negativity and fear have on you mentally. Nice video

I honestly believe this is the most important issue of this era. Mostly, on social networks, but even in our relationships, in the way we communicate, this constant chase for equilibrium against negativity is extremely tiring.

The bias comes from the simple adage- reacting is easy, thinking is hard. Anger is a reaction. Thinking leads to compassion.

I've literally cut off so many news sources to help my mental health. It's becoming so bad that it feels almost impossible to get real news without feeling like the world is going down the drain. A note to my friends also struggling with anxiety, don't listen to the news, focus on yourself, breath, you got this. ❤

I’ll admit, a few days ago when I was visiting my mom and stepdad, I burst out laughing for half a minute straight when a program he was watching on Fox News started up. Within 30 seconds I heard: “explosive,” “turmoil,” “crisis,” “devastating,” “crisis” again! 😂 I was laughing so hard.

I quit news and Reddit about half way through the pandemic. It was like that scene where Ron takes off the Horcrux. It's helped so much. I still hear by word of mouth if anything important is happening.

The funhouse mirror was such a good analogy, being one who decided to avoid the mirror mostly since I know I can't trust it but processing all the "news" properly would consume the entirety of my life.

This is why I stopped watching the news years ago. It was NOTHING but extreme negativity, it was utterly despairing, depressing, and anxiety-inducing. I cut everything off. Unfortunately it didn't work too well and the effects are long-lasting. I can't remember a single day I tuned in and saw positive or good things. Living in one of the most violent and dangerous countries in the world, it really hits you with how bad things are, because you don't need to watch the news to know the awful things that happen just a few kilometers away from us or just where we live. Every day it comes to our knowledge that someone got killed and cut up in 20 pieces recorded on video and shared on messaging apps and social media, muggings everywhere, influx of new cartel members into the cities/towns creating endless fear and violence, confrontation between enemy cartels, the police... you just can't escape the bad things even if you just cut everything off. It doesn't matter what you do or where you go, everywhere is just the same thing and these things simply haunt everyone, everywhere, always.

Wendover: "The media focuses on bad news alot more than good news. This is bad news" All of us: "oh no, oh heck" Love your videos, thanks for keeping us informed!

this is the kind of content that needs more attention, i love how you somehow manage to make a serious subject somewhat lighthearted with the analysis you include

The real issue is that people don't have the time or don't care enough to research the issues in depth. It's not always easy to do so either. There is a lot of misinformation. Take the case of SVB collapse. It took me almost a week to completely understand what really happened and all the nuances.

I was a news editor on 2 major international newspaper titles and there was one simple principle guaranteed to get an item on the top of the morning news list for editorial conference - if it bleeds, it leads.

I never really thought about whether negativity bias was in any way a physical response or not; I always assumed it was pure socialization, the tendency to react to the dramatic. It's so much easier to make negativity wildly dramatic without lying than positivity; I always thought that was all it was. A lot of amazing stuff got discussed in this video, but I think that's the part that's likely to stick in my head the longest - in an ironically sensible way, because it implies that this is a fundamentally unchangeable part of human nature, which I despise. Thank you for making content like this all the time, Wendover. I generally watch all these on Nebula, but there's no way to comment or share over there, so I come back here anyways to pass it around.

Modern society puts us in a near constant high stress state between demanding work loads, super busy schedules, negative media, dependency on the system for our needs of food water etc

That R.E.M song was such a brilliant song describing the fear people carry today. "It's the end of the world as we know it" "and I feel fine"

This video is a godsend as someone who tries their best to avoid negativity and being too jaded, especially online

As a student just getting into college pursuing a Mass Communications degree, I completely agree with everything that is said in this video. I may not live in the US, but here in the Philippines we have a really similar problem with the news published by TV networks in which they skew more toward the negative than the positive. And it really really hurts because in here, the primetime newscasts from our big 3 (ABS-CBN, GMA, TV5) typically get air time for 1 and a half hour, that's 3 times more than the average newscast in the US! Another problem is that the style in which these newscasts provide is tabloid and sensational news so there's little to no in-depth reporting actually being done to real issues except for the networks' other public affairs programs which don't even have the same amount of ratings that the newscasts do! (As an example, the newscast of GMA "24 Oras" gets average ratings of 15-17% and its always placed at either the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd most watched show every day) This is the reason why I've been steering away from *news that TV networks make* but instead focused on *news that the local newspapers* make since I can actually read more info about a report than a more congested version shown on TV.

These news stories rarely have any direct influence on our lives, and there is little we can do about them. It feels important because of the need to keep up with the most current events and be the first to talk about it. But learning about things from a slower, more thorough way is much better in my experience. It is impossible to be on top of it all the time, and missing out is actually good for you.

This is the first real in depth dive that I've seen on this topic. It is very interesting because it's something that we all recognize and hate, but then also completely subscribe to it when it comes to developing our opinions or gossiping with others. Great video, Sam + writers!

I glad this video was made. I am so sick of all the negativity everywhere these days. Life ain't perfect. But dang. Our brains are hardwired to look at the negatives and think more negative than anything positive. I realize I have so many positive interactions all the time and find them completely forgettable. All the negatives and conflicts with folks are etched into my brain. I think this how we got to the extreme of saying certain groups of people are such and such. Because the people who promote this just see that and forgot all the harmless other interactions with others of a group they hate.

Sam, I love these philosophical videos of yours. They discuss topics a lot of us would like to think and talk more and deeper about, but the daily rush a lot of us are in just doesn't leave enough time to do that. Well done!

The funhouse mirror analogy works very well with maps. The Mercator projection is useful but is very inaccurate in some ways, yet it affects people's perception of geography very strongly. If you look at a real-proportioned Africa or Mexico, which are quite a bit stretched out than they look on a Mercator map, you would instinctively think that they don't look real.

I was very surprised about how Danish national DR news were generally positive or silverlined. I've never before moving here imagined that someone can watch news for fun in the morning and hear about relevant stories.

As a nervous flyer, I like to watch Wendover Productions' videos while flying. Anyone else think he needs to partner with Southwest, Delta, or United and make his own in-flight channel app people can watch??

There has so much negativity around and it has been steadily increasing. I often found myself drawn into it and hated it. I stopped watching TV and news 10 years ago, deleted all social media a few years ago, and I am so much happier since then and it had a positive impact on my mental health. First I was worried if I would miss out but it was one of the best decision ever. Thanks for this great piece of explanation, brilliant video!

Can it be argued that this may be changing finally due to the sheer amount of media out there? I stopped watching cable news mid-2020, and in the time since, I've selected my news based on the things that interest me but not at the expense of what's current or relevant, at least, I try my best. My thinking is that there is so much news on so many different topics that I cannot possibly consume it all, so I will choose to delve in on what's important or relevant to me. That has shaped my own personal negativity bias in the sense that I seek a balance of positive and negative information, such that I worry less than I used to and also seemingly less than the average person. Is this the trend of the future?

One thing I've learned as i get older is that life always seems to go on despite how grave the news can be. Think about the uncertainty of the world from 1915-1945: WWI, the spanish flu, the great depression, the dust bowl, and WWII, which led to hundreds of millions of losing their lives. I'm sure people during this time thought it was the apocalypse, but ultimately life prevailed. We tend to think we're on the precipice, that it's never been like this before, but chances are it has. Yes there's always threat of a world wide nuclear war or massive power grid failure that could wipe out 90% of all living species, but chances are somewhere at some point life will go on for some.

Did I just watch an 18 minute ad for Nebula? 😂 Thanks, Sam & team. Your content, platform and tone gives me hope that there's still room for positive, well-researched content in the US media landscape.

The flow of ideas in this essay is not predictable, and yet it is straightforward. Not dramatic, and yet engaging. Kudos to the writers, this is masterful work.

What a great topic and video overall. I’m very grateful someone covered this and made the info accessible so that people can understand

This is an extremely important concept for people to understand. I am constantly astounded by how negative peoples view of everything seems to be despite how much good happens.

I honestly don’t understand the rationale behind the news executives “Let’s destroy our society to make that money, money will protect us once everything goes to sh*t.” You can’t survive the apocalypse with your $3M house and $10M 401K you geniuses…

A couple months ago I was on Facebook. I've followed some news pages, including former local news pages, but I realized so many of them we're sharing stories simply because it made people comment more. Local news sharing a small story 1,000+ miles away simply because it was a little controversial, which made people comment, react, and share the post. After that I unfollowed every news station. I rarely get on Facebook anymore, and I'm not nearly as stressed as I was

This was one of the most unexpected, but most well made and reflecting videos by wendover, kudos!

It's funny because in Canada, I would say CBC is the one main broadcaster who criticizes government validly, while private companies are more focused on keeping the status quo.

I'm from the UK, and I noticed that what positive news gets reported on tends to be a much smaller scale than the negative news. A general news day is the "big story" that every news channel covers, then international (war, natural disasters, negative politics) then national (government failures, interviews with people whose lives were ruined by those failures) then one short positive story about an individual or small group (usually a sports win, or something about animals or technology). Does anyone have an idea of why the postive focus tends to be on the small things? Or why the general news layout is so similar?

I hope this hits trending. Everyone needs to see this.

The thumbnail, the funhouse mirror analogy, the general writing of it, everything was so good in this one!!

I rarely comment on your videos, but I have to commend you on the format. The bear analogy was clear and entertaining, and this video felt different from your other “THIS…is a thing”-type videos.

A lot of my white American friends keep talking about how race relations in the US have deteriorated. I constantly end up assuring them that things have, in fact, improved. It just so happens that they know about it now. I'm a queer Asian American man, one with darker skin at that. I grew up facing colorism and homophobia in my cultural heartland as well as in the US, but things have consistently been improving. That's not to say that there is a lot to be done, there absolutely is. But we have made several steps forward. Two steps forward, one step back, and two more steps forward. It's always that negativity bias that makes the step back seem so much worse than any step forward. And as far as the negativity goes, if you're okay with doing some slightly heavier reading, skip the news cycle and read some academic papers. The information is deep, thoroughly analyzed, and very detailed in higher impact journals. It just risks being a little bit dry. Personally, I'm okay with the data and analysis without the emotion, because sensationalism gets exhausting.

Thank you so much for making this. All your content is really good, but this is really helpful in a time like this.

I can't help but praise the author of this video. From the beginning to the end the whole story is building nicely and the conclusions are more than interesting. Thank you!

Maybe this is why celebration is so important, we have to draw ourselves to the positivity to compensate for the bias. Maybe celebration is more important than we realize.

Y'all really delivered something special with this one. Absolutely brilliant writing.

Been a viewer for awhile but had to say this was incredibly well done. The topic is monstrously complex but I think you broke the parts down into something bit sizable while keeping any personal bias in reasonable check. Well done, this is a video I’ll be sharing.

I used to work at a local TV broadcasting group... and one thing I heard repeated by people in the newsrooms everywhere.... "if it bleeds... it leads". This is why you dont hear about the puppy of the week of the local animal shelter and only see maybe 2 minutes or 5sec at the end of the news before they go to the next program. (btw.. this is the time that most news directors figure ppl are going to the bathroom or are making something to eat in the kitchen)

Really great watch. I absolutely hate having to deal with negativity a lot in more recent years. It just feels inescapable nowadays wherever I go. It’s basically a bulwark in any major current news, where the focus always seems to be doom and gloom and pointing towards our own demise (it was the absolute worst last year with everyone being like “oh, with the war in Ukraine, we might just die in a nuclear war soon”). Even outside of regular news, a lot of discourse in communities for hobbies I indulge in to ESCAPE regular news are affected so much by negativity and rage that borders into toxicity at times. I’ve seen it so much for Star Wars to the point where it feels like everything is going to shit and nobody feels happy about things anymore to a point where sometimes I don’t feel motivated about being invested in that fictional world as a hobby anymore. It gets to a point where game/movie/TV discourse can be just as bad with negativity as regular news. That’s why I’ve had to start filtering or blocking out certain channels or outlets from my feed or my personal routine, just so all of it wouldn’t affect my motivation and overall mental health.

Really good topic, well broken-down and edited. Great video. I gotta say, I think this channel is one of the only educational RU-vid channels I can still handle. They're all getting so full of repetitive, biased, meaningless blather that they have no meaning anymore. If I'm being honest, even some HAI videos feel that way, but these ones have been much better, so I appreciate them a lot.

As an American, i get all of my news from DW News and France24. France24 has a global news talk show with a changing panel of experts called “The Debate” streamed on YT 11am weekdays West coast time. I high recommend both channels (here on YT) in general, but really cannot speak highly enough about The Debate. Great show, the guests are always great, the host is fantastic. If anyone from France or Germany is reading this, thank you!

Love this new style of animation and essay and tone - 10/10 ⭐️

They literally do the prioritization of sadness in The Morning Show. (No spoilers i promise) s2 ep1, it’s Dec 2019, the Morning Show producer is rushing thru the backstage area and a assistant comes up and pitches a shooting, huge protests, and a “weird pneumonia in China”. The ranking went just as you would have predicted. And they only had time for two. The insinuation is they didn’t even cover COVID’s origin bc it was seen as no big deal, while ironically we now know the “weird pneumonia in China” they’re eluding to is Covid 19.

We can’t expect to curate a better future without focusing our attention toward what those better improvements are. We must remember this when seeing negativity, it isn’t that is wasn’t there, but that it should reorient our attention in the opposite direction in order to make positive progress. Even when it doesn’t feel like it at the time, when examined after some time we can often realise that hasty hostility or exclusivity are less beneficial than seeking to understand and accept things as they are, and worry about what positive action can help enable better outcomes in the future, without the hatred giving our lives any additional friction.

I think the book called "Factfullness" by Hans Roslings and that it was partly a counterreaction to this phenomenon. Please make a video in the factfullness style and remind us of all the positive growth and development the world is going through!

Great video. Pleasantly surprised it wasn't one big ad for ground news.

Love your content! Always gives me something to watch and learn and question

Good job guys. This was a pretty well written video.

this is one of the greatest videos ive ever seen, period. Such an important topic that hasn't been articulated well until now. Thank you!

that was the most insane VPN sponsorship placement i've ever seen. crazy

Thanks for making such a great video! Keep it up!

I was shocked that this wasn't sponsored by Ground News. If there was a Wendover video that could be sponsored by them, this would be it.

In my perspective, technology had a deep effect on the escalation of media negativity. With the popularization of internet, many people thought regular newspapers and news channels would go belly up and die. They first reacted with online subscription, but that simply wouldn't do it. Once social media got in the game, things changed, the regular media decided their supposedly-high-standards for ads would get them skinned, so they started getting any ads they could, but that still didn't make the cut, until they realized how engagement works. It takes a 5 minute glimpse for a competent data-scientist to realize people are much more likely to engage themselves (like, comment, share) news which are fear-inducing, horrendous and generally negative than positive, and that is by a a HUMONGOUS margin. That's how traditional media evolved to survive. Except now the tables have turned on it again. With the big independent-small-media-boom in the last decade, traditional media have lost a lot of visibility to these small parasites which pretty much copy-pastes any traditional media content faster than light, then proceeds to post it on their own ad-covered websites, which in turn, are better at navigating google's and pretty much every social media algorythm, pretty much stealing all their ad-rich-juice.

The quality of the narration has gone UP in the past few videos I have watched. Good work, mate :)

I didn’t even know there was a pandemic until 2 days before the first lockdown, at the time I disregarded all media due to bias, and I was in a big shock just a few days later, the last news I saw was at that point was in December 2019.

You know the days gonna be good when Wendover drops a new video😂❤

That was one of the most exceptional intros that I've ever seen. Well done!

Fantastic summary of the situation and the issue with any of the fixes to it.

This is an excellent and very important video. I wish schools spent more time (or any at all!) teaching us about the biases of our medias.

I've learned over my years in the military that over a long enough time I forget the bullshit and the pain, but I never forget the relationships and friendships. Not decades later.

Probably my favorite video of yours to date. Great job!

Dude holy shit your quality and narration has gotten so good. The editing is really amazing too. Super cool to see you grow like this!

Awesome and thorough explanation of how news media works! My favorite is "it's not good or bad, it's just a thing."

Love this video. I think the negativity bias gets worse when news organizations make up bad news just to gain views and ratings to keep their audience engaged and enraged. Should media organizations be required to report truth? Should that even be a debate? If we just report facts instead of spinning the narrative to please the target audience things will be so much better. I liked that there’s more good happening in the world than bad, it’s just sad that the bad is getting more coverage!

5:30 "There's nothing we can do about it because it's written into our DNA." There's a lot of things that are rooted in our DNA that we fight against for the betterment of society. Men not impregnating every woman they want. Not violently assaulting those who irritate us. Going to sleep shortly after sundown instead of watching Wendover videos well into the night. We can, and should, fight against many of our natural instincts for the betterment of those around us. Except that last one. I'll watch Wendover videos on repeat until my eyes bleed!

" *BEAR* There's a bear!!!!" I experienced that response for the first time last year while hiking in the wilderness, it was only two baby bears though and they were terrified of me.

The media tells you want you want to hear, not what you may need to hear.

It's natural and cultural influences combined. Like how people telling a story: you always need a conflict, the combination of objectives and obstacles. But conflict isn't the only part of storytelling, so we just need to put more effort into other parts too.

Amazing video. I’d love to see more social/psychological content on this channel!

I got rid of news and social media (outside of RU-vid and LinkedIn) a few years ago, and my mental health and overall feelings of life got way better.

If more people would listen and understand what you've written here, this world would be a better place. I've all but completely disengaged from mainstream media, due to it's bias in whatever direction. I've never been much on being told what to do or think. So it works for me. But so many people allow themselves to become a marionette for whatever media they consume. Such a tragedy.

Watching this was so validating, lowered my anxiety

I stopped bothering with the news years ago. But I still get the news via what people are talking about online a lot so I don't miss anything actually important. I've noticed over the last few years, that doing that method where others who pay attention to the news go on social media to talk about the parts they personally consider important, is a much better metric for what you should actually pay attention to. It helps with conversation and because it's coming from a person online, not a company, you know not to trust the information without looking it up first. So usually when I speak to my friends now, I'm a lot more knowledgeable about whatever the important news of the week is because I only see the news that a lot of people care about, and then I go and research just that filtered news

This has been the best thing you have ever done, very well done 👍

I have to disagree with remembering awkward and/or negative experiences from school days more than positive, but maybe that's just me. I have a tendency to be nostalgic and remember the fun we had in the "good ol days" and forget about all the boring stuff. Nostalgia can be overpowering and make us look to the past with rose coloured glasses. I am certainly guilty of it, and you hear it a lot from people around my age "the 80s/90s were SO much better than today". I say it too. But were they? Or do we just remember the good parts and black out the bad parts? Like my grandfather always said, "times change, but people don't", and while yes certain eras are more positive than others there are always similar players throughout history, and I think humans tend to sensationalize whatever era they were young in.

Thank you for talking about this. I’m over nothing but negative news stories dotting my timeline everyday. You’d think we’re experiencing Armageddon every single day

Kudos Sam... you nailed it. I'm a former Journo from Perth, Western Australia.

I wish this video could be shown to everyone. Great stuff.

The first two minutes of this video are possibly the best intro Wendover has done so far.

"If it bleeds...it leads"

This is one of your better videos. Really interesting and important take on the subject. Well done.

this is a new bar for yall. seriously great stuff.

Great content, Sam and team. Always entertaining but this one was IMPORTANT. Keep it up!

This was an incredibly good essay on the current state of the media in the US. I hope that things can change somehow, as I don't think that this is healthy for our society.

Love how at 3:26 the firefighter has Cyrillic on their outfit. As somebody who is learning Russian (and has been for the last two years) its just kind of neat.

Australia's ABC worked previously, but is now at the mercy of political loading and we're debating whether it should lose its funding. More than government funding is required, the news needs an active incentive to be impartial in both content and tone.