A two-part study was designed to measure the amount of good news and bad news in newspapers and to measure readers' recall of stories that represented good news and bad news. The stories used in the study appeared on the front pages and on one of the inside pages of eight California newspapers during October 1978. A total of 559 telephone interviews were completed within one week of good news and bad news stories selected from the October 16, 1978 newspapers. The content analysis of papers showed an approximate split among good, bad, and indeterminate news, with a slightly higher bad news percentage overall. Contrary to expectations, afternoon papers contained no more bad news than did morning papers, although one afternoon paper registered the least good news and two afternoon papers registered the highest levels of bad news. The range from a 50-50 split of good news to bad varied only about eight percent. Including an "indeterminate" classification of news stories in the study resulted in an unexpectedly large percentage of total content in this category, precluding precise analysis. The single consistent finding in the public impact analysis was that no difference occurred in public recall of good versus bad news stories. (RL)