BREAKING NEWS: Not Really...
Breaking news! Britney Spears is a lunatic.
Breaking news! Someone is experiencing something dreadful... somewhere.
Breaking news! There was a house fire in Timbuktu.
How are these examples of breaking news? Well, they aren't. Honestly, this type of "breaking news" should be on page 37D of the newspaper. Unfortunately, these stories make their way to the "top of the hour" broadcasts and page 1A of many of our newspapers.
Living in the era of the Information Age, lacking the ability to find a solid story should be as hard as playing pick-up-sticks with your butt cheeks. Reporters should never feel as if they don't have a story. News-runners should wear through their shoes at least once a week, and should have callouses on their fingertips from scanning the World Wide Web for stories of real substance and relevance.
Still, people get what they asked for. People want to hear about Britney Spears recent escapades into insanity. People want to know about a fire in Timbuktu. So many tune in to hear of the latest "news" about someone going through something miserable... somewhere. Sad as it may be, this nonsense sells.
It is my hope that journalists will begin telling people what they need to hear rather than what they want to hear. They need to box ears, not tickle them. This is the nature of the journalistic beast. Keep telling it like it is, but make sure that "it" is truly newsworthy.
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Wonderful point...
You make a great point...but as someone in the journalism biz, you have to write stories that your readers want to read. Believe me, there are days where I would love to sit and write pieces about the world and how it really is and stories that are important...but it does not always work out that way.
It did help to work for a military publication where my readership and target audience is mostly military and their families and I have restrictions on what I write (and no it is not propaganda :) )
All journalists want to make an impact on the world, whether they work for their college newspaper or the Times. It is how they choose to use the power that has been given to them for good or not.
But do you really think that most of those junk stories you hear or read are "true journalism"?
What is journalism to you? What makes a story and good one?
Thanks for the comment
Let me say that I agree with you that there is a place for junk journalism. My frustration is that we have made headline news out of what should be left on the front pages of supermarket tabloids and breaking news out of the relatively insignificant.
I am of the persuasion that market forces should not play a major role in what journalists choose to print. It is a matter of what people want to read over against what people need to read. In a market driven system, junk news becomes run-of-the-mill. Stories that would otherwise have no legs are sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars. This is true not only of stories, but of pictures that accompany them.
With the mass media we have hundreds of television channels dedicated to various topics. We have magazines that focus on various issues. We also have the World Wide Web. Junk news can find a comfortable home on many channels, internet sites, and in many magazines. But the newspaper is a different breed, or at least used to be. A glance over older writers and television pundits over against what we have now gives us an excellent idea as to what I am talking about.
Lastly, let me say that I have nothing against "junk news," per se. I simply believe that on the food chain of newsworthy stories, these should find themselves on the shelves of supermarkets.
PS- Which military publication did you work for? I was in the U.S. Navy.