Negativity drives online news consumption
Former newspaper city editor here. With few exceptions, positive stories -- although readers clamored for them in surveys -- never drove newsrack sales the way negative stories did. That&#x27;s why we had a whole section for feel-good features but they didn&#x27;t usually get prime front-page real estate.<p>In the age of infinite content, headlines have become a sort of drama arms race. But the basic dynamic of what works and what doesn&#x27;t for drawing in readers hasn&#x27;t changed.