News: what is, what isn't, and whether it needs to be so depressing. (Part 1)

In this great nation, just about everyone has something to say about what's wrong with the news. Some people believe that the news is too negative. They're nauseated when they see images of war, crime, and destruction constantly being pushed onto our national psyche via the nightly news. What about all the good news? To others, the news is a bunch of frivolous, irrelevant fluff. They're disgusted by what they perceive to be a never-ending stream of celebrity drama and scandal. Is it really in the nation's best interest to inform everyone that celebrity A is cheating on his wife, celebrity B, and having a baby with celebrity C? And a small, devoted minority thinks it's all being staged by an evil alliance of evil jews in an evil lair in the evil town of Hollywood California. But since I don't have time to fly to the west coast and investigate the aforementioned claims of an evil lair, I'll try to address the first two criticisms, and talk a little bit about what (in my opinion) real news is.

First of all, for an event to be considered news, it has to be something NEW, something that represents a change in the status quo. For example, the following story is not news:

"Today in Washington, the government of the United States of America continued to operate."

That story isn't news, because it doesn't represent a change in the status quo. By default, citizens in the United States of America assume that their government is operating. The following story, however, would be considered news:

"Today in Washington, the government of the United States of America was overthrown by a group of communist revolutionaries from Georgia. Their leader, Steve Buttersworth, has set himself up as the leader of a provisional government which is currently working on a charter that will replace the old constitution."

That story IS news because it represents a change in the status quo. Normally, people don't assume that communists are establishing a new government in Washington DC. The people need to be informed when such an event occurs.

In order for us to go a little further into the subject of what makes news newsworthy, let's take a look at what most people in our society would consider to be the status quo for the average human:

(1) Person X is born.
(2) Person X gets proper education and nourishment, and grows up.
(3) Person X lives life as an adult. He/she has a roof over his/her head. He/she has enough food to eat.
(4) Person X grows old, and eventually dies of natural causes.

Additionally, you could summarize a little bit of what we believe the status quo of society to be:


-People are obeying the laws.
-Government is enforcing the laws.
-People are going to work.
-Buldings remain standing.
-Children are being educated
-Etc.

When you really think about it, it's only logical that much of the news is negative. People assume that the good things listed above are occurring in the world around them. They don't need to be told that "Thousands of children were born today", or that "Millions of people ate dinner tonight", or that "In the past week, a majority of citizens did not commit murder". In our subconscious, we assume that these things are happening. In a nutshell, no news is good news. But when someone breaks these normative patterns of society and life, news occurs. If you were a local news producer and you had to choose between the following stories, which would you pick?

(A) Bob Smith, an average, middle aged man, remains alive, after 38 years of average health.

(B) Jack Henderson, an average, middle aged man, was murdered in his home today. The killer remains at large in the greater metropolitan area.

What about these stories?

(A) The United Mutual building remains standing after 20 years of normal usage.

(B) The Northern FInancial building collapsed today in what officials are calling, "a terrorist action". Large portions of the downtown area will be blocked off indefinitely. The governor is urging citizens to give what they can to aid the families of those killed or injured in the attack.

In all of these cases the choice is clear. The Bad things are more newsworthy because they represent a change in the status quo that the public should be informed of.

But there's still a distinction that needs to be made between private tragedy and public tragedy. In other words, bad things that the public needs to know about, and bad things that the media has no legitimate reason to report. And there are still plenty of positive (or at least non-negative) events that can be considered truly newsworthy.

To be continued...