Lately, we've noticed many news channels and publications being saturated with focus on stories that are being milked for numbers.
We understand around-the-clock news channels sometimes need to fill time gaps, and we also understand publications must fill space on a page, but there's a difference in smoothing over blank spaces and coloring outside the lines to the point that worthwhile stories suffer.
But who really cares about the story itself suffering from a lack of air time or page space?
It's the viewers and readers who are affected. It's those very same people whom a journalist strives to supply with the information that needs to be known.
Sadly, it seems this ideal is often sacrificed for the almighty buck, and again, we've noticed this more and more as of late.
Let's run through some examples.
A couple of weeks ago, rapper T.I. began his 366-day jail sentence. We certainly see the news value here, but the spotlights about every detail leading up to the situation and constant updates on his jail time seem like overkill.
Then there's the absurd attention to events such as the Jon and Kate (as in "Plus 8") break-up.
Again, we understand the need to throw attention at such a scenario, given the popularity of the couple's show, but watering down sources of actual news with constant coverage of the dying relationship between a television couple is saddening.
Let's leave such matters to the likes of E!
Because daily, gossipy updates regarding a reality TV show don't belong on major news outlets.
Continuing, even a story like the swine flu, which carried its newsworthiness for a while, saw an abundance of attention that made more commotion than necessary.
The media rode this story as long as it could and milked viewer and reader numbers out of it.
It's even worse when this particular strain of the flu was never more menacing than the one we battle year after year.
In all these cases, the media is sacrificing attention toward worthy information for the opportunity to severely overplay stories that will boost numbers, despite carrying less merit.
This is a nauseating trend that seems particularly bad recently, but as aspiring journalists, maybe we can take something away from it.
It'd be hypocritical to say we disapprove of such journalistic practices and then turn around to do the same thing ourselves, so we'll do our best to stray from updates about socialite couple "Speidi" and stick to things worthy of newsprint.
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