Media Critique

TV News Stations: Blowing Proportions to the Little Things and not Showing the Big Things

Looking back of what the lead stories are for the TV news stations as well as Courier Journal during the month of October, the pattern still continues. In most cases, the four TV stations often had lead stories that have been not much significance to a whole wide audience, thus making it non-newsworthy. Their topics are typically not core/peripheral nor does it ever have that direct and lasting informational impact toward a large audience. Typically, the stories that they reported as news stories were local crimes of sorts or any accidents that had happen in the Kentuckiana area. Though they say they are providing local news to the general public because that’s what their priority, many other local issues could have been pressed as their lead story like the Courier Journal. Using the Courier Journal as the lead example, they have done a good job in making sure that whatever stories they mostly have are important to their audience, which is mostly local also. If the TV stations are able to go toward a large variety of topics and not just mostly crime and accidents, the substantial information they would be able to send out would be more newsworthy and a good aspect of what good journalism quality should really be.

Media Critique

WAVE: Few, but not Millions

Of the events that were told Theo Keith, a local couple was left to a giant hole in their backyard after a sewage pipe was hit when they originally had wanted to build a below-ground pool for their grandchildren. Though it is a feat in which they were not informed of the situation that they had an underground pipe that they were not told of, this disrupts a part of the yardstick of newsworthiness. To consider what makes it a newsworthy story, it would have to have a direct and lasting informational impact among the story. However in this case, this type of story was done in a way in which it wasn’t that newsworthy. Rather than affecting a large part of the Louisville community, it had only affected the couple themselves and how their situation is going so far with the MSD. Though it can be considered important to the Stefaniks, it is not considered something worth to be told about to the whole public if the situation will be fixed soon vice versa to a situation in which might affect all of Louisville for a period of time.

The story can be found at:

http://www.wave3.com/story/23963663/louisville-couple-left-with-large-hole-after-pool-contractor-hits-sewer-line

Fox News: Is it really that important?

Former President George H.W. Bush witness at Maine same-sex wedding

As fellow journalists, the seven yardsticks and nine principles have to be followed throughout the whole process of journalism itself. While many do follow some of them, like the truth, loyalty, independence, watchdog, etc., there's one topic most news organizations (often local) miss -
Newsworthiness.
According to gradethenews.org, newsworthiness is based off of two facters:

1. Whether the story topic is "core" or "peripheral"
2. Whether the story is likely to have a direct and lasting informational impact on a wide audience.

Core topics would be things in which information like this is what the public needs like politics, government action and economics. Meanwhile there's peripheral topics, information that is wanted but is not needed to know. Things like this include celebrities, human interest and other stories in which do not create a big impact. An example of in which articles are not newsworthy is a story done today by Fox News. The article can be found here:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/09/26/former-president-george-hw-bush-witness-at-maine-same-sex-wedding/

In this article, it tells the story of the former President, George H.W. Bush. He had visited a wedding in Kennebuck, Maine, being an official witness of a same sex wedding. The associative press of Fox News had gave in great detail about the former president being in long term ties with the fellow wives and how his son wasn't for same sex marriages, unlike many other people that surround him. As much as it was a tearing, heartwarming story, this is not what journalism is to be.
Looking back at the two factors that determines whether they are newsworthy or not, it clearly shows.

• This topic is peripheral. In a way, the former president is a celebrity. Also, in fact it was informed mostly about things all over the place. They had mentioned many things like information about President George H.W. Bush, his family and his son's way of being against same sex marriage. None of the info listed above or in the article is important.
• They did not have a lasting impact toward a wide audience. Journalism's purpose is to help readers and viewers make sense of pressing issues and events that affect them. How is an article like this able to affect viewers in a huge sense if it doesn't even have any relation to them? Being a witness at a marriage does not affect millions of people in America unlike something like tainted beef or deadly bacteria found in farmers' produce. Simply, it's not newsworthy but rather a filler.

As stated in many of the previous journalism classes, Fox News is one of those demographics that typically try to get as many news stories to fill up time or just try to look as if they are important journalism organizations like CNN or NPR. What they should really do however is just stop going after every story. Instead go for the stories that affect us greatly. Even if there are many interesting things that people want to know like who won 'The Voice', it's not something that would affect people's lives vice versa to something like Obamacare and the war in Syria about chemical weapons. That way, it'll significantly be a more newsworthy journalism association with these big impacted stories instead of many little ones with short impacts.