GOOD magazine recently published a visual analysis of 2009 news coverage in the United States. The majority of editorial decisions are understandable, which is encouraging.
The most surprising investment of media resources was in two stories about people who want to be celebrities: the parents of a boy who turned out not to be in a balloon in Colorado, and a Virginia couple who crashed a state dinner at the White House. Combined, these two stories attracted nearly as much coverage as the war in Iraq.
One of my brothers believes reality television is popular because ordinary people no longer aspire to be better than ordinary. He quotes a line written by Irving Ravetch for the movie “Hud” — “Little by little, the look of the country changes because of the men we admire.”
Editors, producers, broadcasters, publishers, and audiences can aspire to extraordinary stories, and ignoring the values of reality television is a good first step.
News analysis based on weekly data collected by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, including print, television, radio, and internet sources. The infographic is a collaboration of designers Naz Şahin, Şerifcan Özcan and GOOD magazine.
