Media is more negativity biased: Michael Gleich
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Michael Gleich starts off by showing a photograph of a car crushed by an uprooted tree. “There’s a saying in Tibet that one tree that falls makes more noise than a forest that grows. My experience is that journalists are more interested in that one falling tree than the growing forest,” the German journalist and author says.
A second photograph has a soldier pointing a rifle at the head of a man, presumably a POW. But it forms only one part of a picture. The hidden part shows another soldier pouring water from a flask into the man’s mouth. Only the full picture reveals that the rifle is not pointed at the man belligerently. That full picture is what constructive journalism is about, says Gleich, leading a workshop here at the Press Club on Tuesday.
“There is a lot of scientific evidence today that there is a negativity bias in the media. We sometimes overlook the potential of the solution,” says Gleich.
While constructive journalism is not a new concept, it is not an aspect of the profession that is often highlighted in the media of Germany, Europe and the US, he says. Gleich, who has 37 years of experience in television, radio and the print media, has covered issues ranging from war to biodiversity and has a number of books to his credit.
Gleich presents an interesting set of data to show how repetitive ‘hammering’ of news of a certain type can distort public perception. A survey in Germany revealed the people believed car theft had shot up by 47 per cent, murders by 27 per cent and sexual murders by a chilling 260 per cent. This, when the actual figures told a different story altogether. Car theft had gone down by 71 per cent, while murders and sexual crimes had fallen by 41 and 38 per cent respectively!
“People have a totally distorted view of reality. One murder is repeated often so that people get the impression murders are on the rise,” he says.
Constructive journalism, on the other hand, completes the picture of what news is. So what is constructive journalism? Gleich begins by explaining what it is not. “It is not PR about any particular project - journalism is not PR, journalism is journalism,” he adds - and neither it is about painting the reality pink. Constructive journalism is about addressing relevant social problems, focusing on solutions and researching material critically, he says.
“It is about knowing how to proceed,” he adds. Constructive journalism adds the ‘what next?’ question to the oft-quoted what, when, where, why, how and who queries. So is constructive journalism activism? Gleich says ‘no.’ “As a journalist, I still have my critical view,” he says. Perhaps, he says, the negativity bias in the media is triggered by the ease with which certain emotions like fear, worry and pain can be triggered.
“We have some evidence which shows that in the social media constructive stories are shared more than negative ones,” he says.
The event was organised by the Goethe Zentrum Trivandrum.