#2 - IELTS Writing - Bad news in newspapers - Part1

TASK:
Present a written argument or case to an educated reader with no specialist knowledge of the following topic:

News editors decide what to broadcast on television and what to print in
newspapers. What factors do you think influence these decisions? Do we
become used to bad news? Would it be better if more good news was reported?
________

It is known that every mass media outlet has special people – news editors - who decide what information will be published in future issues. There are certain factors that influence their decision.

The most important point, from my point of view, is the target audience of the newspaper, magazine, or the TV station. One would not expect to see much of political speculations in a Cosmopolitan, and Scientific American would not be the right magazine to look for food recipes or fancywork patterns.

Another point would be the country where the issue is published. Freedom of speech is declared as aone of basic Human rights, but there are countries where mass media is controlled by the government, and authorities decide whether certain information should be published or not. One historical example would be the Soviet press: negative events, which could paint a less idealistic picture of the current situation in the country, were not published.

Furthermore, there are events of worldwide importance that simply cannot be ignored, and, they have an their influence on news editors’ decisions. These events can be both negative and positive: whatever draws society’s attention at the moment, the Olympic Games, or a war in Asia, it will be given priority.

Whatever the reasons are that make the news editors choose what to publish, a lot of people think that there is too much negative news shown in mass media nowadays. It is claimed – and I agree with this point – that the prevalence of bad news influences people’s way of thinking, making them used to the bad and making their attitude to life negative. Experts say, for example, that airplanes are the safest means of transport, but lots of people are still scared of flying, because all air crashes are inevitably shown on TV, whereas there is no information about the thousands of routes flown safely every day.

*Great job. Generally in formal essay writing, we do not use contractions such as "wouldn't," "couldn't," etc.