Is Reality Newsworthy?
I read news headlines every morning. This is how I get informed on what goes on in the world.
In the post, Always Trust Strangers, I made the assertion that “It is ironic that I base my impressions of the world on the news, when newsworthy events are by definition out of the ordinary.”
So as a follow-up, I wanted to explore with you the question: How relevant, in fact, is the news to “what is going on in the world.”
What immediately came to mind for me, was an article I studied multiple times in my communications university degree, put together by two scholars, Galtung and Ruge (1965).
Galtung and Ruge analyzed scores of media publications/broadcasts to search for what makes an event newsworthy. I looked long and hard for their list- and after delving into the rich and voluminous world of academia, found a nifty little summary on Wikipedia.
So the following is Galtong and Ruge’s criteria for newsworthy events, as well as a few additions from Schlesinger (1987) and Bell (1991). I invite you to think of the news that you read/watch/hear, and see if any of these criteria resonate with your impression of the news.
1. Frequency: The news has a frequency: Events which occur suddenly and fit well with the news organization’s schedule are more likely to be reported than events that occur gradually or at inconvenient times of day or night. An event that takes a long time to materialize is unlikely to be reported, either.
2. Negativity: Bad news is more newsworthy than good news.
3. Unexpectedness: If an event is out of the ordinary it will have a greater news effect than the ordinary.
4. Unambiguity: Events whose implications are clear make for better copy than those which are open to more than one interpretation, or where any understanding of the implications depends on first understanding the complex backgrounds in which events take place.
5. Personalization: Events which can be portrayed as the actions of individuals will be more attractive than ones in which there is no such “human interest.”
6. Meaningfulness: This relates to the sense of identification the audience has with the topic- “Cultural proximity”- events involving a people who speak the same language, look the same, and share preoccupations with the news audience, receive more coverage than those concerned with people who speak different languages, look different and have different preoccupations.
7. Reference to elite nations: Stories concerned with global powers receive more attention than those concerned with less influential nations.
8. Reference to elite persons: Stories concerned with the rich, powerful, famous and infamous get more coverage.
9. Conflict: Opposition of people or forces resulting in a dramatic effect. Stories with conflict are often quite newsworthy.
10. Consonance: Stories which fit with the media’s expectations receive more coverage than those which defy them (and for which they are thus unprepared). Consonance does not contradict the above unexpectedness, as it refers more to the media’s readiness to report an item (We learned in school that the media actually has ready on file, the reports and broadcasts for political leaders’ assassinations.)
11. Continuity: A story which is already in the news gathers a kind of inertia.
12. Composition: Stories must compete with one another for space in the media. For instance, editors may seek to provide a balance of different types of coverage, so that if there is an excess of foreign news for instance, the least important foreign story may have to make way for an item concerned with the domestic news.
13. Predictability: An event is more likely to be covered if it has been pre-scheduled (like a press conference or The Grammy Awards).
14. Time constraints: Traditional news media such as radio, television and daily newspapers have strict deadlines and a short production cycle- and therefore select items that can be researched and covered quickly.
15. Logistics: Although eased by the availability of global communications even from remote regions, the ability to deploy and control production and reporting staff, and functionality of technical resources can determine whether a story is covered.
End of list.
Returning to my original question- How relevant is the news to “what is going on in the world?”- The answer is, clearly, yes.
So long as what goes on in the world does not occur at an inconvenient time of day or take a long time to materialize, does not include good news, happen often, is not too complex, does not effect faceless masses of people, does not contain cultural similarity to me, does not represent a nation of elite nationhood or a person of elite personhood, does not involve conflict, general patterns or situations the media is unprepared for, doesn’t include too much on one topic, has not been scheduled, would take too long to research and does not meet the logistical needs of the news agency.
Sure humbles me.
The media does a good job of telling us stuff, but the stuff they tell us is understandably incomplete- best as reporters try, the news paints us a very partial picture of what the world is. And just like I am cannot be objective- no news publication can be objective, either.
Do you have any clever ways of learning about the world? Leave a comment and help us out.
For Chana and I, walking from small town to small town in Ireland and Scotland and listening and watching the small-town folk did more to teach us about Ireland and Scotland than we could ever have imagined. Maybe one day we’ll get a chance to do something similar somewhere else- maybe we should start doing that at home.
Tomorrow morning, I think I’ll just wake up and read the headlines. And I think that that’s okay- but I do want to make sure that when I leave home after reading the news, I walk the streets with eyes that want to learn more about my reality- not eyes that think they understand reality because they’ve seen it in the paper.
When I read tomorrow’s news, I will try to read critically and attentively, and I will try to remember that even if I “get” the news, I most certainly do not “get” the world.
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