Check any college journalism textbook for a list of what makes a story newsworthy and you’ll get something like this:
Timing – It’s got to be current. Who cares what happened last week or last year?
Significance or Impact – The more people it affects, the more it is news. A car crash that kills one is not as big a story as a bus crash that kills twenty.
Proximity – The closer it is, the more it’s newsworthy. An armed robbery on another continent is no big deal. One down the street is.
Prominence – Few people care if I break my leg. If George Clooney breaks his, a lot of people care.
Human Interest – If it’s funny or sad or offbeat, people want to know about it.
Here’s another concept that shapes the news that journalism texts don’t mention:
a turd in the punchbowl.
The Toyota recalls were the top news for weeks, until the political fight over health reform knocked them off the media front-page. A check with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration website tells us that it wasn’t the largest recall in history. The problems they addressed haven’t played a role in the most deaths. And it’s not like sudden unintended acceleration (SUA) is a rare concern. The February 9 issue of Popular Mechanics reported that the NTSA got around 24,000 SUA complaints in the last decade, and looked into less that 50 because most are untraceable, unrepeatable, or end up being driver error. The number of complaints on Toyotas didn’t even go enough above the statistical average for the NTSC to notice them.
So why was the Toyota recall such a big news story? One reason is because Toyota was a punchbowl with a clean reputation for safety and reliability, and this problem was a big turd plunked in the middle of it.
I remember years ago when I was doing public relations and marketing for a small, private liberal arts college affiliated with a church. A couple of chemistry majors set up a lab in their dorm room and began making recreational drugs – and distributing them to friends and acquaintances. When a local high school kid took too much and needed attention, they were discovered and arrested. Every area television station had a camera crew on campus the next day. This was at the height of the meth lab and homemade drug era. Labs were discovered every week. Faculty and staff asked me why this one was getting so much attention. The answer was simple: a private, church affiliated school was a punchbowl, a perceived safe place. This story was a turd in that punchbowl.
The same thing goes for international news. Back when the Abu Ghraib prison story broke, political commentators who supported the war effort were lamenting the fact that the USA was being besmirched by all the reports. The other side was blowing up innocent people, torturing opponents in far worse ways, even beheading prisoners. Why, they asked, was Abu Ghraib such a big news story?
Because Al Qaida and the like blow up innocent people all the time, and then take credit for it. They torture people they have captured and announce it to the world. They not only behead people, they sometimes do it on camera. In essence, they proudly proclaim “We are a toilet.” A turd in a toilet is not news.
But the USA tells the world “We believe in rule of law and human rights.” “This is the way to be,” we say. “Come drink from our punchbowl and the world will be a better place.” So when the USA deposits a ripe one in the middle of its punchbowl, through torture or secret prisons or cozying up with human rights abusers, it’s news whether we like it or not.
The Roman Catholic Church has dropped a few big ones in recent years. And they haven’t learned the lesson that you have to thoroughly and publicly clean your punch bowl or the story will live on and on.
Can you think of other examples of “turd in the punchbowl” news?
Do you agree or disagree with my assessment of how this factor shapes coverage?
Let me know.
And on an unrelated note-I often wonder if other people’s news media usage has changed as much as mine has in recent years. It looks like it has.
Here’s a study by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism posted March 1, 2010.
http://www.journalism.org/analysis_report/understanding_participatory_news_consumer
It appears that these days many people are getting their news for multiple sources.
“The overwhelming majority of Americans (92%) use multiple platforms to get news on a typical day, including national TV, local TV, the internet, local newspapers, radio, and national newspapers. Some 46% of Americans say they get news from four to six media platforms on a typical day. Just 7% get their news from a single media platform on a typical day.”
The study also shows that more people are active news sharers rather than just passive receivers.
“To a great extent, people’s experience of news, especially on the internet, is becoming a shared social experience as people swap links in emails, post news stories on their social networking site feeds, highlight news stories in their Tweets, and haggle over the meaning of events in discussion threads. For instance, more than 8 in 10 online news consumers get or share links in emails.”
Do you get your news from multiple sources?
Which ones? Why?
Do you share news links on Facebook or other social networking sites?