What is News? (And why isn't it what I think it should be?)

I think this is something that everyone thinks from time to time. Especially with the proliferation of media outlets: it seems any flunky can get his own talk show and any soap box is good enough to televise.

This morning, I was having a discussion about what constitutes news with someone who thinks it strange that the Chicago papers gave front page treatment to the deteriorating economy pre-election; now that the election is over, the Chicago papers are running front page stories about President-elect Obama's family members and his choice of advisors.

When I was in journalism school, more than 20 years ago, one of the first things we learned were the five things that constituted “news.”

Timeliness, significance, proximity, prominence, and human interest were the five. And the stories that meet those five criteria will vary depending upon the media outlet, the location, the readership, etc. Proximity is a big one: meaning a story that is either geographically “close” to the readers or a story that has special significance for most of the readers of a publication.

So, for the Chicago papers and Chicago readers, the Obama girls and the Obama cabinet positions meet all five of the standards for a local audience, most of whom are not c-level execs. Many of them probably fall into the 250,000 people who showed up downtown on Tuesday. Hence, the front page treatment of Malia and Sasha and Rahm.

However, today's Wall Street Journal’s above-the-fold headlines are these:

“Global Push to Beat Economic Downturn”
“Hedge Fund Selling Puts New Stress on Market”
“A Snowblower Maker Braces For Slump’s Blizzard of Woe”

Those articles meet the five criteria for the WSJ readers, many of whom are c-level execs or business-owners, people who are definitely interested in the economy before anything else.

None of this implies that coverage is impartial in any media outlet. The days of any media outlet being impartial are over. Every publication writes for its own readers; and we, as readers, seek out the publications that please us, interest us or meet our own standards, and we read them. It’s called custom publishing, baby.