1.2: What is News?

It may seem that news is, by definition, something new.  But, new to whom? If you’ve been closely following a politician’s campaign, his call for new taxes – or his call for major tax cuts – may be old hat to you.  But to someone who hasn’t been following the campaign, it’s news.

This has important implications. It has been a convention in print journalism to say something happened “yesterday” or “this morning.”  The idea was to let readers know you’re on top of the news.  But if your publication may be delivered several days after the event, is it necessary to say, “yesterday”? 

When Bernard Kilgore was transforming The Wall Street Journal from a 34,000-circulation financial trade paper to the nation’s first national newspaper, one printed in eight printing plants around the nation, Kilgore decided the word “yesterday” not only wasn’t necessary but shouldn’t appear since a substantial number of subscribers got their papers by mail, and it might be two days or more after the publication date before they would receive it.  It’s still news to them if they hadn’t known about it, he explained.  That tradition continues today. News doesn’t happen “yesterday” in the Journal.  But it can happen on “Tuesday’ or “Wednesday,” etc.

There are some pretty specific criteria by which journalists decide whether to even consider publishing something:

1.      Is it new?

2.      Is it unusual?

3.      Is it interesting or significant?

4.      Is it about people?

5.      Is it local?

 

Is it New?

If it’s not new, it cannot be news. The assassination of President Kennedy is unusual, interesting and significant and about people.  But it occurred in November 1963 – nearly 60 years ago.  So, it cannot be news. But if some new evidence turned up definitively linking the Soviet Union to the attack, that would be news.

 

Timeliness is the Art and Essence of Journalism

The test of “is it new?” bears an important caveat for those hoping to get something in the paper or on the air.  Don’t send it after the event. At least not to radio and television nor to daily publications of any kind.  Weekly or monthly publications or programs may be just aga-ga about the celebrities who attended your reception and the fact they were served some famous sparkling wine, but 24 hours after the event, the dailies don’t care.  At all.

 

Is it Unusual?

In 1927, Douglas Corrigan was a mechanic who worked on Charles A. Lindbergh’s “Spirit of St. Louis,” the aircraft in which Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic to everlasting glory. Corrigan wanted some of that fame himself, and in 1938 he bought a 1929 Curtiss Robin aircraft of a trash heap, rebuilt it, modified for long-distance flight.  In July 1938 he flew the single-engine aircraft nonstop from California to New York, winning national attention because the press was amazed his rattletrap aircraft has survived the journey.

After his flight plan to cross the Atlantic was denied by aviation officials, who considered it a suicide mission, Corrigan took off on July 17 from a Long Island airfield to fly back to the West Coast.  A few minutes later, he made a 180-degree turn and vanished into a cloud bank.  Twenty-eight hours later, Corrigan landed in Dublin, Ireland, got out of his plane and exclaimed, “Just got in from New York.  Where am I?”  Authorities promptly suspended his license.

Newspapers immediately dubbed him “Wrong Way Corrigan,’ he became a national celebrity and a mob of autograph seekers met him on the gangway of the ship that carried him and his crated plane back to New York.  His license suspension was promptly lifted.

 

Los Angeles Herald-Express, Aug. 5, 1938. Appears uncopyrighted; not in LOC Catalog of Copyright Entries 1938 Periodicals Jan-Dec New Series Vol 33 Pt 2.  Picture from  History’s Newsstand Blog  http://blog.rarenewspapers.com/?p=7724

Corrigan’s stunt met all our criteria:  It was new; relatively few had soloed a single-engine aircraft across the Atlantic.  It was unusual, for the same reason. It was interesting it was about people, and, at least for New York media, it was local.

 

Is it interesting or significant?

A story about a dog biting a man would not be printed in any newspaper or aired on any station, unless the dog had rabies.  There are tens of thousands of dog bites in the U.S. every day.  But a story about a man biting a dog – that’s entirely different.  It’s interesting, unusual and about people.

Likewise, not all stories are about Very Important People – or those who consider themselves to be VIPs.  A city bus driver, who has driven the same route for the last 25 years, may be the subject of a story in a newspaper or on radio or TV. 

Why, you may wonder, would someone who has “just” driven a bus for 25 or more years rate a story when someone whose accomplishments might be more significant might not?  The answer is simple:  Over the last 25 years, thousands of people have ridden his bus.  For many, he’s become a friend if not a member of the family. They have moved out of the neighborhood and no longer take the bus, but they will still want to know.   Interestingly, this type of story often gets higher readership or viewership numbers than a more “significant” story featuring a local politician pontificating.

 

Is it about people?

Have you ever read a news story loaded with statistics?

News editors will rarely publish stories that aren’t about people.  Even those about some new discovery about the Incan or Mayan civilizations are, in a sense, about people, since we naturally tend to wonder what our ancestors were like.  It’s even more interesting when we discover they were just like us in some respect – perhaps they drank beer, or had similarly shaped pottery. 

But generally, statistics-laden stories are deadly dull.  On Dec. 16, 2022, the Bureau of Labor Statistics published a story that began:

There were 5,190 fatal work injuries recorded in the United States in 2021, an 8.9-percent increase from 4,764 in 2020. The fatal work injury rate was 3.6 fatalities per 100,000 full-time equivalent (FTE) workers, up from 3.4 per 100,000 FTE in 2020.

If that isn’t enough to put you to sleep, consider the story’s discussion of fatal workplace injuries among Black or African American workers:

The share of Black or African American workers fatally injured on the job reached an all-time high in 2021, increasing from 11.4 percent of total fatalities in 2020 to 12.6 percent of total fatalities in 2021.    Deaths for this group climbed to 653 in 2021 from 541 in 2020, a 20.7-percent increase. The fatality rate for this group increased from 3.5 in 2020 to 4.0 per 100,000 FTE workers in 2021.

This may be an important story, but any news editor would assume it would get very little readership.  Suppose, however, the lead paragraph began this way: 

For most of his working life, John Jones had gone into enclosed spaces.  He knew they could be dangerous. But on this summer day, Jones went into a vat at X Brothers to clean it.  A few minutes later, his coworkers outside the vat noted it seemed to be quiet.  They called Jones once, twice. Increasingly frantic, they called him again and again, even as they also dialed 9-1-1.

Jones was one of 653 Black or African American workers fatally injured on the job in 2021, an all-time high in a year that saw a 20.7% increase in fatalities for this group. 

Do you see the difference?  Simply reporting numbers is dull and will quickly lose the reader.  But using a person to illustrate the number brings depth and meaning to the story.

Stories about people are always more interesting than stories about numbers.

 

Is it local?

Were you planning to drive to Indianapolis, Ind., last summer to see Trace Adkins perform at the Indiana State Fair in August?  Would you do it even if you were a fan?  I didn’t think so. Would you consider driving to Baltimore to see Trace Adkins if he was performing at the Maryland State Fair, assuming of course you’re a fan?

That’s just one example of the importance of localness in news.  It explains why even though 28 people died in a massive winter storm in Buffalo, N.Y., and surrounding Erie County, the event received relatively little coverage in the Washington, D.C., area – and even less elsewhere. The New York Times buried the story on page A-11. USA Today didn’t mention it on page 1, nor did the Los Angles Times.  But the Los Angeles Times did lead with “Worst Wildfire Hazard Zone Swells,” a story obviously important to Southern California residents, while the woes of a snow-bound  New York city a continent away had little impact on readers.

While it’s not one of our criteria for news, the size of the media is also an important consideration.  A story involving a small business in Bowie, Md., is more likely to get good play in the Bowie Sun, the Bowie Patch, or the Bowie Banner than in the Washington Post. But that doesn’t mean you should not send it to the Post; you should.  just expect more from your localest media than from regional media.

What about radio or TV? If your story has the potential for a good visual, by all means, send it to local TV stations.  But understand this:  a 30-minute newscast typically devotes 8 minutes, a bit more than 25% of a half hour, to advertising that pays the bills.  That leaves only 22 minutes for all the other stories – the local crime report (“if it bleeds, it leads”), fires, the mayor and city council, etc.  Your odds of getting your story on TV may be small – and if it’s about the promotion of a salesperson to sales manager, nil – but if it has w