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Observation on today's online journalism: in my book, Death is not News. Neither is the weather, nor the actions of religious or famous people.
out of a possible 20 "news" items on CNN.com, a full 15 focus on death (usually violent death), crime, weather, religion, or celebrity.
of the remaining 5 items, 2 are related to politics, 1 is related to business / entertainment, 1 is science, and 1 is random.
in other words, about 80% of news is simply death, weather, or fame.
think i'll go back to reading TechMeme and ESPN.
More Startups. More Jobs.
As much as I love techmeme, I wouldn't want the information I digest to be only about tech (or sports!) for that matter. I tend to focus on World New a fair amount...notably because I am overseas at the moment.
P.S. Sorry I couldn't make the bday bash. Overseas, ya know:)
Posted by: Damon Billian | Monday, August 18, 2008 at 05:12 AM
TV is worse. If you watch an hour of CNN with a Tivo and fast forward over the gossip and fluff, its amazing how little is left.
Posted by: Jeff Moore | Tuesday, August 05, 2008 at 05:02 AM
Most of it boils down to fear. Fear sells the news. What is people's biggest fear? Death. "It could happen to you!" type crap is a staple of news reporting. So death, murder, crime, kidnapping, and bad weather all play into the base emotion of fear. There are also shark attacks, pandemics, and paris hilton... all scary shit.
Posted by: David Beach | Monday, August 04, 2008 at 02:31 PM
Why? Is that the information we are looking for? is that the information that entertains us? Are we not CNN targets? is it that life does not drive as many pageviews? Death is instant vs life a process... then life will never be a headline? anybody?
Anyways. Tired to see the expressions of the plateau of either our current, least imperfect models for news corps or our culture, or both.
Deadly curious.
Posted by: Jose Arocha | Sunday, August 03, 2008 at 11:17 PM