Swami, why do newspaper play news about all those worthless celebrities? Like I’m sorry that Heath Ledger died, but so what? He was just an actor. Why don’t you put real news in there? Signed, News Starved.
Dear Starved,
Swami sympathizes about your indifference to celebrities because how many new things can you really know about Britney Spears?
But here’s the other size of the coin.
The New Times City Room blog, which gets a lot of traffic from folks, has had 1.7 million distinct visitors (that’s MILLION) on its reporting about Ledger’s death with 48 hours.
Swami predicts with a high degree of confidence _ I repeat, confidence is high _ that almost all of what looks like news-of-the-moment will shift to the Internet within five years.
As for news judgment, here’s how news consumers most usually view what news is.
If I like it, then it’s news.
If I don’t like it, it’s not news.
It’s a close corollary to the political thermometer: If I agree with the view, the political coverage is balanced and fair. If I think they’re full of refried beans, then they obviously are biased.
The great crusade over objectivity in covering news often has little to do with any measurement of fairness. People don’t so much want fairness and balance. They usually mean “tell me something I agree with.”
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