(C) Common Dreams
This story was originally published by Common Dreams and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
Working the News Puzzle [1]
['Daniel Macy']
Date: 2024-04
It seems there is a surfeit of very important stories to cover these days. Newsrooms are juggling multi-pronged stories that have long arcs and big consequences, and you can probably guess what they are: Atop the list are two wars and a U.S. presidential election in which the likely GOP nominee, former President Donald Trump, is facing 91 criminal charges. What’s more, these particular stories relate to one another deeply. This makes the current news cycle different from, say, an earthquake in one part of the world and a landmark court case in another.
Cameras aren't the only moving parts involved in piecing together a newscast. The sequencing and length of stories are ever changing. Image: Shutterstock
Yet all too often our viewers – consciously or not – believe it’s the news media that shapes the news agenda. But the news media mostly just mirrors the agenda. Many viewers believe the media can do more; it should take a more active role in shaping the big picture by emphasizing certain stories. If people only knew about this story, they think, it would make the kind of noise that gets the attention of those in power. This is neither unrealistic nor unreasonable. It is why so many people, including news people themselves, say a free press is vital to a functioning democracy.
But in the everyday grind, the newsmakers, not the news editors, drive the news. It’s an editor’s job to figure out which stones need to be turned over and which stories to report first, for how long and with how much of their limited resources. That sounds a little bit agenda-setting, but it’s not. Newsies can sniff out a story that is already there and then assign it an appropriate priority ranking. But the story has to be there first. This does not mean viewers will stop accusing newscasters of displaying their biases. It is, afterall, an industry that does operate within some blurry lines. That’s why viewers should be watching and questioning.
The treble of heavy stories dominating the headlines today is just from the top of the news heap. Every day brings innumerable other stories from all over the spectrum, some that are breaking stories with new urgency that competes with those that are already generating bold-faced headlines.
While this river of news sounds like a “good problem” for the news business, it’s not a windfall. If it’s raining news, an editor can’t just stand by and let gravity do all the work, nor can they cherry pick. They must somehow fit a slate of stories competing for attention into a given swath of newsprint or hard-and-fast broadcast time limits—every day.
A newscast, like the PBS NewsHour, is a kind of interlocking jigsaw puzzle. Remove one piece and you haven’t just changed the circumstances for that piece—it leaves other puzzle pieces in a changed state and in want of some order. An extra minute of airtime tacked onto one story is a minute less for another and a whole new context for the rest of the lineup, perhaps.
But there’s another kind of prioritizing system that is ever-present, and that’s the one you keep in your head. Every viewer has a unique point of view – a distinct sense for what’s important. Today, this is evident in audience reactions to structured newscasts and the now-common, continuous feed of algorithmically presented stories on social media. News show producers must answer to audience members who question their judgment. I could be wrong, but I don’t think many people write to Meta, the owner of Facebook, and complain about the story lineup. True, they may grouse that Meta, or X (formerly Twitter) promote stories of one ideological stripe over others. But that’s about algorithms, not news judgment. That's what social media platforms have said in Congress, anyway.
In emails and texts from viewers, we are not surprised to hear from those who are unhappy that a story they consider a top priority is not getting proper play. We are heartened to find out they have enough passion to write us, as an Iowa PBS NewsHour viewer did recently:
“I may have missed something, but I’ve been watching NewsHour all week and am dismayed at the lack of thorough coverage of Kate Cox’s denial of her court approved abortion in Texas. This was a huge deal. Half of the U.S. population is having their freedoms denied and it should be covered, big time. Of all the terrible news this week, this one was on my mind the most. Will you please give it the coverage it deserves?”
--Susan Hathaway, Fairfield, Iowa
The writer described herself as a longtime PBS NewsHour viewer. She was not derogatory or angry. She expressed herself quite reasonably. So I wanted to see what Ms. Hathaway saw. I watched the NewsHour episodes for each of seven days leading up to the day she wrote us, December 13.
Here’s what I found: From Dec. 8 to Dec. 13, there was just one mention of Cox, a Texas resident who left that state to obtain a legal abortion. It aired on December 11, fifteen minutes into the show. It took up a 20-second spot after a report on the climate summit in the United Arab Emirates. But on Dec. 7, the NewsHour ran an 8-minute segment on the Texas abortion law story, featuring a live interview with Cox and attorney Molly Duane of the Center for Reproductive Rights.
So, indeed, the story about Cox did not get prominent play – that is, in a certain stretch of days in which a viewer expected to see more coverage about it. And it’s a fair criticism on the viewer’s part. But look a little further and find that indeed there was a major report that garnered a lot of air time.
The point is, the story was not being ignored. A viewer and an editor may never see eye to eye on just how much attention a given story deserves on any given day. But day in and day out, editors exercise their best news judgment in making these decisions, applying journalistic standards that have been developed over years of experience.
There are compelling reasons why a given story should be moved up in the story order and gotten more prominence. But in the end, these are the editors’ calls. Day after day, we see them practicing what I believe is good judgment.
I would not deny that there are some compelling reasons why the Kate Cox story might have reasonably been moved up the story order and received a more thorough treatment on more days. But in the end, these are the editors’ calls. Day after day, we see them practicing good judgment.
And, they do listen to viewers who weigh in.
Sara Just, executive producer of PBS NewsHour, said, “We care in public media what the audience thinks of our work and the events in the news in general, but that is not how we program our broadcast. Free of fear or favor, we focus our decision making with the same journalistic standards that the PBS NewsHour has maintained for nearly 50 years.”
I think that is a good description of the role the news plays in society. It is easy to pick it apart from day to day. But day after day, week after week, good standards and practices lead to better conditions, whatever they may be. What’s ultimately “better” is, in the end, an individual value. Accurate news just gives Americans a fighting chance to make that calculation.
Back to Just’s statement. She was open and detailed in a response to an email I sent asking how audience feedback may affect a news producer’s mindset. Here is a little more of what she said:
“The NewsHour staff has a process for reading and reviewing all viewer mail and share a sampling of those messages with our full newsroom each day. We don't have the bandwidth to respond to all of it but we do make time to respond as we are able. But these contacts are generally not a part of our editorial process, per se.”
Viewers are whole-heartedly encouraged to share their views with news producers and public editors. Processing words and thoughts that come from other human beings sets us apart from news feeds, ticker tapes and news blasts…and online trolls. Being openly and purposefully receptive is part of the job of journalists and editors.
Even if viewer comments do not directly affect a newscast, their comments do not fall on deaf ears. The more opinionated a viewer’s feedback is, the more I can say it’s part of a longer, slower process, as opposed to a direct, daily one. My writing about this one viewer’s comment is part of that longer, slower process.
And not all viewer comments are opinions. Sometimes sharp-eyed viewers spot clear-cut errors.
Just said, “We have intelligent, alert viewers who occasionally point out when they feel our reporting has fallen short and also when they have appreciated our reporting most. Sometimes our viewers have even caught errors in our work and we have made corrections on air and online as needed. Most of our viewer mail seems to be coming organically from individuals. Sometimes we receive viewer mail that is clearly part of an organized email campaign around a particular issue or point of view. Neither type carries more weight than the other.”
That is some insight into the work behind the scenes that you will not get from the bot farms.
###
Daniel Macy is a senior associate in the Office of the Public Editor at PBS.
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://www.pbs.org/publiceditor/blogs/pbs-public-editor/working-the-news-puzzle/?utm_source=publiceditor_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20240308&utm_campaign=20240306_Working%20the%20News%20Puzzle
Published and (C) by Common Dreams
Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 3.0..
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/commondreams/
