Death and Mayhem are Popular

One recurring theme often expressed is that the news is too depressing… the nightly headline and sound bites are often of people being killed, folks mangled in car crashes, or countries hurling rockets back and forth. Folks claim to want happy, feel-good news, but that theory doesn’t jive with my own reality I’ve observed.

I run Dogcaught, which is a niche blog catering to those interested in railroading, the railroad industry, and photos of railroads. I routinely post daily observations or commentaries on the industry. My traffic, inbound links, and ad click-through rates are pretty steady. Guess what makes things go crazy… guess what drives traffic through the roof… guess what will guarantee me a bunch of advertising dollars… derailments. Pictures and narratives of mangled steel and twisted tracks consistently drive traffic. My most popular post ever was the Holiday Express Derailment and that was a pretty minor accident in the grand scheme of things.

I suspect things aren’t much different for the big boys and that feel-good stories probably don’t bring in as many ad dollars as death and destruction.