Emotion has permeated media and politics. Appealing to sentiments is an old trick that leads the audience to give up on thinking rationally – quite useful if you’re preparing a demonstration or a political rally.

Most media followed in the politicians’ footstep, too happy to replace analysis with emotion.

• For one thing, emotion is cheap. It’s easier to interview 1 crying soldier’s mom than to research the reasons why so many are being killed. When 10 French youngsters were killed last month in Afghanistan, only 1 newspaper asked why it happened.
• Beyond cost concerns, playing with emotions allows for news outlet to regain their role as community leaders. After the 2004 tsunami, for instance, journalists urged the audience to give to charities (without concern for other disaster-affected people) in a huge collective action.

Telling the news in the form of heroes and villains is more and more widespread. The ‘victim’ is the new hero, ’suffering’ the new focus of media interest and interviewing ‘witnesses’ replaces analyzing a situation.

The newly launched Google Archives allows for quick and simple time-series to test such hypotheses.

Not only did emotion journalism expand since the 1980’s, it prospered at the expense of political coverage.

Selling soap-opera scenarios as news doesn’t fool anybody. Especially as the public becomes more aware of the production processes. (Remember how Sean Penn saved New Orleans in his sinking boat?)

Everyone can discern the lack of news value in a vox-pop or in a victim’s interview. Not that it should not be made. But it’s far from the high value-added “why journalism” can bring.

Emotion journalism doesn’t do any harm in itself. To think that the public will buy it as objective journalism is ludicrous. Modern journalism’s model is broken at the core. Trying to revive it with more blood and less news will only lead to sales sinking more abrupty.