If it bleeds, it sells.

“My pain is the echo of your own joy.” Friedrich Nietzsche

This March marks the 10th anniversary of the ill-fated Operation Car Wash. Not coincidentally, the judiciary is faced with the dilemma of reviewing the leniency agreements signed by companies that were coerced into signing a shockingly disproportionate agreement.

Media outlets decided to mark the date by publishing daily reports on the subject, revisiting testimonies from key figures in the biggest corruption and manipulation scandal in Brazilian judicial history. The operation broke the country, but generated huge financial gains for the media. 

At the time, media coverage was constant and oppressive, with no regard for the standards of good journalism. People were exposed and publicly humiliated. The vultures of Curitiba humiliated and mocked their victims, even in the face of the death of relatives. Everything was broadcast instantly, with no regard for the suffering of the people and their families, as it generated huge profits for the media outlets.

In journalism, there are two sayings: "bad news sells" or "if it bleeds, it leads." These slogans explain why violent crime, war, terrorism, natural disasters, crying children, and corporate bankruptcies are omnipresent in television news. Thus, the more death, flesh, blood, and misfortune are splashed across newspaper front pages or digital media screens, the more newspapers will be able to attract consumers' attention, and at the same time, the more consumers will pay attention to newspapers. This vicious cycle has no end. 

This leads us to wonder, why is the media so eager for the pain of others, to the point of not caring about any feelings of compassion for the degradation of the people it itself helps to bring about? 

The explanation lies in the numbers: the greater the pain of others, the greater your profit.

This equation (profit = pain + suffering of others), whereby entertainment ceases to be the main objective of the media and is replaced by bloody news, dates back to the 1960s. Until the beginning of that decade, TV news programs were loss-making, but then they became profit machines.

The fact that media outlets make money from disturbing events is rarely discussed. But understanding the link between negative news and profit is important for shedding light on the forces that shape contemporary journalism.

The assassination of US President John F. Kennedy 60 years ago offers an interesting study of this link between chaos and journalistic profit, as it caused Americans to turn to TV news.

After an armed man assassinated the president in Dallas on November 22, 1963, television news programs provided comprehensive, uninterrupted coverage at considerable expense to the networks. This earned the news a reputation for public spirit that lasted for decades.

During their coverage of the tragedy, TV networks showed sensitivity and canceled commercials, dedicating all their airtime to broadcasting the story. At one point, 93% of all TVs in the US were tuned in to coverage of the event. 

At that time, news was the segment with the highest losses, while entertainment was the leader in gains. Later, this phenomenon was reversed with the huge audiences of television news programs.

How, then, did TV news become a money-making machine?

Coverage of Kennedy's assassination, combined with the expansion of news broadcast time, significantly increased the commercial value of TV. Throughout the 1960s, broadcast journalism began to mature and become the most profitable programming genre on American television, leaving entertainment in the background.

The networks, however, did not disclose their profits and promoted the idea that coverage of the Vietnam War and the assassinations of the 1960s were services of public interest. They concealed advertising revenue from news programming to ensure the renewal of broadcasting licenses and tax benefits.

Ultimately, the chaotic, cacophonous, and confusing decade of the 1960s would ultimately promote the hypercommercial media world we live in today. Pursuing sensational investigative stories, such as Watergate and the Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages scandal, would generate more audience and more advertising revenue, and turn journalists into national celebrities.

This has reinforced the idea that other people's misfortune is extremely profitable, because bad news sells. It is a truism in the media industry. Today's news programs, full of misfortune, confirm this maxim.

The problem is that this banality of evil is turning into a certain normalization of the culture of evil, causing this malicious behavior to be treated spontaneously by society. As a result, the vile act becomes a social norm.

Thus, any similarity to Operation Car Wash in Brazil is not mere coincidence. While filling the coffers of media conglomerates, the continuous coverage of this criminal operation, which caused people to suffer, broke productive economic sectors, and led the country to high unemployment, did not undergo any critical scrutiny by the mainstream media.

Therefore, these 10 years are remembered as a dark period in journalism, as sensationalism, political bias, lack of context, and lack of plurality of sources prevailed at that time, leading to the manipulation of public opinion and prejudgment of the issue.

JFK had no idea that his assassination would change the profitability of the media.