THE public often criticises the media for only reporting bad news but internet tools now prove what most people have always believed - that the more depressing articles are the most read.

Record numbers visited the Hereford Times website following the tragic death of Daren Loader in a Whitecross subway.

And this week has seen the usual pattern with car crashes, court cases and complaints heading the list of the most read stories on our website.

But our online newspaper does not only contain negative news and the front page normally has a mixture of both the good and the bad.

It is just the bad always seem to be the winner when readers log on and choose the story they want to read.

The reporters at the Hereford Times do not have a particular preference for writing bad news stories.

In fact, deputy news editor Mark Bowen was so fed up writing about young people dying on the county’s roads that he started the Hereford Times Safer Driving Campaign.

The newspaper has now featured reports on better motoring for the past 15 months and new statistics show an encouraging drop in the number of youngsters injured in road accidents.

The one anomaly within the charts of the most popular stories surrounds sporting articles.

Graham Turner’s apology to fans and an interview with Hereford United’s goalkeeper were two of the most read stories on our website in the past two days.

The same goes for the national newspaper websites and The Guardian, Britain’s most visited online newspaper, often sees more people reading a Manchester City match report than an interview with Gordon Brown.

But a quick look now at the Daily Mail’s website proves that when it comes to popular news, there is only one winner in the good versus bad battle.

As I type, the top five most read news stories can all be considered “negative”.

A boy crushed to death, a woman who died giving birth and the Prime Minister planning a raid on pensions show that readers have a much bigger appetite for depressing information.

This only goes to prove once again that those who argue for more good news are of a different breed from the majority who crave the bad stuff.