A number of commentators have argued in recent years that the media overemphasises negativity in its content. Answering this question is no trivial matter, as it requires a standard against which the media's coverage can be compared. That is, it is challenging to establish how negative or positive media content should be. What we can certainly determine instead is how the sentiment (positive or negative) and emotional undertones (such as fear, anger or joy) of news content compare with the same metrics at different points in time. This allows us to establish whether news media content is becoming more positive over time, more negative or pretty much staying the same.