The case of Peterson lacks any inherent public-service value. Whether or not Mr. Peterson murdered his wives does not effect your life, mine, or any of CNN's audience outside of the small Illinois town he inhabits. Claiming the media will solve the case ignores the negative effects of media coverage, such as bias intenional or otherwise. If the media was devoted to the mission of informing the public, this story has no place in the newshole. Adding insult to injury are the stories that where pushed aside by the Peterson's story prominent place as the banner on CNN's main web page. Lesser stories like:
CNNMoney: Auto execs face sharp scrutiny
U.S. families struggle to feed kids, report says
"Borger: Obama dealing from strength" 40 min
"McCain may face bumpy adjustment"
Pirates grab more ships off Somalia
Who is the CNN Hero of the Year? Vote now
CNN Wire: House Dems mull end to ‘Don’t...
Apparently, Peterson beats hungry children. (pun intended)
Public fasination with the Peterson case is easly understood: the Peterson story provides an engaging narritive that plays out like any television show. It is not by accident the Leighly reports that crime is the single biggest reason viewers watch the news at 23%. Excaberating the damage is the follow-up news stories that steal yet more time from those stories the public needs to know, such as todays headline:
Peterson claims desertion, meets with divorce lawyer
Further, cases like that of Peterson serve to erode Baum's argument that soft news is valuable. The public may relate to soft news, but an aroused public is useless if their attention has been captured by shtos (unimportant things in English) like the Peterson case. It is indeed "Crisis Popcorn," news covered for entertainment value only.
7 comments:
I think you might be missing Baum's point. The point is that someone who wouldn't know about Paterson may now know about him because of the coverage he is getting of late.
Furthermore, as we discussed in class, Buam's soft news programs are those like "Entertainment Tonight" and "Extra" and no the shows that have been covering Paterson on CNN.
Step back, now, and try to explain this: why is CNN priviledging this story over more substantive ones? Is it just ratings?
But have channels like CNN started to realize that using news stories that would find themselves on soft-news programs can raise their ratings?
For the record, Baum and Hamilton recognize soft news as stories that are "soft in nature and covered in network news shows, not simply dedicated soft shows like ET. For example, here is Hamilton documenting an increase in soft news coverage by network news casts:
"The big shifts in coverage, however, have been away from legislation and foreign reporting and into what is derisively known as “soft news.” While there has been some increase in the coverage of celebrities, both political and non-political, most of the shift has been to the “soft” categories of “news you can use”—consumer-oriented infor- mation on health..."
Yes, it is simply ratings. There are two reasons why this is true: (a) there is no public interest in broadcasting this story, especially beyond the inital crime (b) as I mentioned, the single biggest news draw is indeed crime at 23%. Thus, there is a negative reason (that there is no public-interest here) and a positive reason (crime stories have been proven to be the single biggest news attraction) to argue that CNN has privileged this story over other, less glitzy stories. For the record, the other more substantial stories are followed closely by between 21% (political news) and 15% (Business and Finance) of the public. It is safe to assume that people watch what they follow "very closely," and crime stories do indeed get higher ratings.
"there is no public interest in broadcasting this story, especially beyond the inital crime"
What do you mean by public interest? Is this a value judgement about what the public should or should not know? How does one gauge public interest if not through ratings?
Public interest does not mean what the public is interested in knowing. Public interest is reference to what news the public needs to know, as in "what is in the interest of the public."
I mean this partially tongue-in-cheek but, isn't it elitist to say that you know what the public needs better than the public does?
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