Rhetorica: Press-Politics Journal

July 23, 2004

Progress…

Hmmmmm…we’ve tried being less serious. I’ve got it! Now let

Posted by acline | July 23, 2004 | Posted in: Main | Comments (6)

6 Responses

  1. Rebecca Atthewell  July 25th, 2004 at 12:25 pm

    This post got me thinking about what the most important stories of the day are, and who decides. Try this little experiment with your local paper: read or scan all of the A section, then mark your top 3 picks in terms of importance. Then compare those with what is on the front page of the paper. See if they are the same, or are even part of your top 3. With newspapers hemorrhaging revenue and credibility, you’d think innovation would be applauded, even encouraged. But no. According to the linked article from Fort Worth Weekly, whining “but that’s the way it’s always been done” rules the thinking of “your press corps”. God forbid, the great unwashed “public” be allowed to decide what’s most important to them – it might take some of the power away from the press. And that just can’t happen.

  2. acline  July 25th, 2004 at 6:27 pm

    Rebecca…your experienet points out differences in values, which would vary widely depending upon the reader–but interesting all the same.

    The civic journalism movement attempts to address some of your concerns.

  3. Lex  July 26th, 2004 at 8:52 am

    My own paper tried something like this, albeit not to the same extent, about 10 years ago under a different editor. And it has taken us every bit of 10 years to undo the damage.

  4. Rebecca  July 26th, 2004 at 9:15 am

    Lex – what do you mean by “damage”? Doc – do you have any knowledge about how editors choose what appears on the front page?

  5. acline  July 26th, 2004 at 9:50 am

    Rebecca…why yes I do!

    Academic answer: By an exercise of news judgment based on professional norms.

    Realistic answer: By the seats of their pants with all good intentions.

    The culture of journalism allows a very narrow range of choices. And those choices are usually obvious, although we’ve all encountered instances in which it seems editors missed badly. Why do those misses happen? Depends upon the situation and the actors involved (rarely overt political bias, IMO).

    For the most part, editors try to put out front what they think is the most important news of the day (“important” defined idiosyncratically in many cases) and items that might entice someone to but it off the rack.

  6. Rebecca II  July 26th, 2004 at 12:23 pm

    HHmmmmm…I guess the “items that might intice someone to but(?) it off the rack” accounts for the front page story in the NYTimes recently about Las Vegas strippers. ;-)