No news in the news?
For some time now, I have played a small game with the yellow press. In Finland, we have two leading tabloids, “Iltalehti” and “Ilta-Sanomat”. I challenge myself to find one piece of news on display, and sofar I have always managed to find one piece. Too often, though, that’s all.
A colleague then jokingly asked me to define what I mean by “news”. Although I laughed it off at the time, it’s actually a very valid question. I really should be able to express my intuitive feeling for what is news, or newsworthy. At least beyond the dictionary definition of “Of sufficient interest or importance to the public to warrant reporting in the media.”
After thinking about this for a while, and reading up a bit, I realized
that what I mostly object to is actually things I
do not consider newsworthy. The journalistic definition I
stumbled
upon
noted that prominence is a factor: If you break
your arm it won't make the news, but if the Queen of England breaks her
arm it's big news.
I can buy timing, significance, proximity, and
human interest, but prominence?
There is an amount of circular reasoning behind citing prominence as a source for newsworthiness. News is by definition prominent, thus anything in the news becomes prominent. This leads to a vicious circle where seemingly “prominent” persons figure repeatedly in the news—exactly what today’s celebrity culture flourishes on.
I believe that news should have an element of objectivity, that is, a foundation similar to that of science. This means that news is not entertainment or advertisement, which is often overlooked nowadays. News items that are based on how famous or prominent someone is cannot be news. Actually, I believe that the opposite should be true. The less prominent the news is, the more newsworthy it is.