Thursday, June 18, 2009

Slow news day

Popular Media's Third Law of News Reporting:
For every completely pointless, unnewsworthy incident reported in the news, there will be an equal and opposite completely pointless, unnewsworthy incident reported in the news.
Yesterday, Child and I laughed together about CNN reporting how President Obama swatted a fly. "Obama kills fly in interview" the headline (front-page!) screamed. "When a fly bugs President Obama during an interview with CNBC, he kills the pest with one swat."

"Could there be anything less-newsworthy they could possibly report?" we wondered. "Since when is anyone, even a sitting president, killing a fly newsworthy?" There was even a video to go with it!

Apparently, we don't have a very good sense of what is newsworthy and what isn't. Not only is President Obama killing a fly newsworthy, but it's also important enough to inspire YouTube videos, spoofs, and discussion around the web. PETA even responded and CNN reported on THAT: "Fly-killer Obama chastized by PETA".

It just goes to show, as the Popular Media's Third Law of News Reporting indicates, there is nothing so trivial that you can't make a news story out of it, then make a news story about people's response to your news story.

1 comment:

Xirax said...

It's just showbiz. Their definition of newsworthiness is different from yours, since their purpose is to make money via ads, and yours is to be informed.