The Good News Index is a daily measure of how much positivity is being promoted by established media sources in relation to negative news stories.  It is proprietary to The Brighter Side of News and can provide a benchmark to the mood of the US population as it is impacted by the news being reported and promoted by mainstream media.


How is the Good News Index calculated?

The Brighter Side of News leverages the same rules used to determine if a story is worthy of publication on its site to classify stories promoted and published online by the top 10 news media websites in the US.  The Good News Index is then calculated by looking at the density of good news stories to neutral and negative news stories to create a numberical value which is translated into a letter grade.  The ranges are listed below.

Note that stories change throughout the day so the GNI is a snapshot in time rather than a real-time guage.  In the future, The Brighter Side of News will look to make GNI more responsive to changes throughout the day.


Which media properties are used to calculate the Good News Index?

The Brighter Side of News leverages data collected from the top 10 media websites based on their US traffic associated to Unique Monthly Visitors.  (Statista)

Yahoo News                        Fox News
Google News                       NBC News
Huffington Post                   Mail Online
CNN                                      Washington Post
New York Times                 The Guardian


What are the Good News Index ranges and how should GNI grades be interpreted?

The higher the numerical value of the Good News Index, the higher the letter grade and by definition, the higher the number of good news stories on average being reported that day relative to negative stories.  Readers will find their tension levels and anxiety lessened from reading the news as the GNI grade increases.