The New York Times managing editor on how she decides what goes on the newspaper’s front page, in response to a reader’s question about how the NYT managed a “balanced mix of positive and negative news stories on any given day”.:
We do look for a mix of stories, but never with an eye toward “feel good” stories versus “bad news.” The senior editors of The Times meet twice a day, in the morning and again at 4 p.m., to discuss the biggest stories of the day, both for the Web’s homepage and the newspaper’s front page.
Sometimes a story gets prominent placement because it is just plain interesting or brings a smile to our faces. But we don’t go out looking for such a story each day.
The same reader question contrasted the NYT to another paper, where “10 of 10 major recent headlines focused on either tragic deaths or violent crimes”.
I also noticed the order of the news tabs on the CNN.com home page: the “Crime” and “Entertainment” tabs are ahead of Health, Tech, Business and even Sport.