[hrktb]

How may articles are actually positive in a newspaper?

IMO advertisers understand that contents making people angry (like politics, mostly) or sad will drive most of the page views, and are OK with some level of negativity. Tragedies directly affecting their potential customers is just a bridge too far.

For comparison, discussion on afghanistan and air strikes is OK: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/25/world/asia/ashraf-ghani-of...

[Spooky23]

I don't think the issue is sensitivity, but association of advertisers with tragedy or creating a vulture-like appearance. You don't want to advertise Southwest in an article about a JetBlue crash.

[nkozyra]

It's more an issue of perceived insensitivity, even though it's happening at an entirely programmatic (and usually random) level.