Media scholars have increasingly examined the effects of a negativity bias that applies to political news. In the ‘spiral of cynicism’, journalist preferences for negative news correspond to public demands for sensational news. We argue that this spiral of cynicism in EU news results in a ‘spiral of Euroscepticism’, taking media autonomy seriously to understand how media logics and selective devices contribute to the shaping of public discourse about the EU. We review the literature on the media and EU legitimacy to show how media frames and their amplification on social media can account for the salience of Eurosceptic opinions in the public sphere that then push parties to contest the EU in predominantly negative terms.