Financial journalist Sam Ro writes in his newsletter about why people are surprised by good economic news.
Ro writes, “For over a decade, I’ve been hearing from people who don’t understand how the economy and the stock market can be doing so well despite what seems like a constant deluge of worrisome headlines.
“As I argued in the December 1, 2022, TKer: ‘This is an issue with news, a business that’s incentivized to address its audience’s interests and not necessarily its needs.’
“Troubling developments, while factually accurate, will often get outsized news coverage despite reflecting a relatively small part of the economy or the markets.
“This happens because our eyes and attention tend to gravitate more toward bad news than good news. And we’ll talk about it, which gets bad news trending on social media. And those who are just hearing about some bad news will Google it, and suddenly it’s trending in search data. Major news organizations have people monitoring what’s trending on social media and in search, and that information gets right back to the editorial leaders who assign stories to reporters.”
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