What subjects should be top news stories?
Today over here the BBC breakfast news is headlining with the death of legendary Brazilian football player Pele. I am not saying this isn’t news, far from it. Should it be the top story?
What types of subjects should be top stories on the news? How do we judge what is important enough?
What types of subjects should be top stories on the news? How do we judge what is important enough?
Comments
As I've said on previous occasions about this subject - there are three rough categories of potential news stories:
1. Objectively important
2. Subjectively important
3. Interesting to some people.
I think sports stories are category 2. It makes no difference to people's lives beyond what importance they choose to attach to it.
To people to whom a category 2 story is not important, there's nothing to distinguish it from category 3. Meanwhile to people to whom a category 2 storily is important, there's little to distinguish it from category 1.
And that is why we have these disputes.
You missed out category 4 - new.
How the Tories are wonderful and mean well by all of us, while Keir Starmer is an evil Commie, worse than Stalin.
How the UK is Christian, despite the fact that almost no one goes to church and the majority quite clearly reject the teaching of Jesus.
You missed out immigrants, swans, cancer, and combinations of the above.
Indeed. For example climate change and the Russia-Ukraine War are arguably two of the most important narratives currently unfolding, but they've fallen from the top of news feeds because those situations are kind of static at the moment.
They did run a regular feature earlier this year on climate change and what could be done locally, but I haven't seen it for a while - I think they ran out of things to say.
Which one? One that you are exceptionally known for I'm sure.
Very few things in the news make a difference to the lives of those viewing/listening/reading.
To take the two most important news items identified by Croesus, the only aspect of the Russia-Ukraine war that makes any difference to the lives of most people outside those countries is the impact it’s had on fuel prices, and that’s already several months in the past now. Which country controls which bit of land on any given day makes no real difference to most of our lives beyond what importance we choose to attach to it. And let’s be brutally honest here, climate change is unlikely to directly affect the lives of most of us here on the ship. The worst impact will be felt by future generations.
Climate change is already here. I believe that you and I are about the same age, and I am definitely expecting serious consequences in my lifetime.
I think there's a second ranking, of timeliness.
The war in Ukraine, for example, is objectively important, but would score low on timeliness, because the news is "war is still taking place".
Someone famous dying is timely. Pele was both famous and well-loved. His death is worthy of note. I'll pray for him and his family, and feel momentary sadness, rather like I would when any other well-loved celebrity dies.
Should a celebrity dying be the lead story? You're watching breakfast news, rather than the evening news, so you tend to get more fluff and less meat. Famous dead person appears to be about the right weight for that.
Happened down in Lancaster, where my in-laws are. Parts of the city were without running water for days.
Sport(s) is/are objectively important because they are subjectively important to the point of inciting mass violence and influencing elections and wars. They are also a key way that people from underprivileged groups advance themselves within any society and often the first way that ordinary people and children become aware that people from one of those groups can be wealthy, famous, and seen as role models. I am writing this as someone who hates sports.
Only if 'some' includes 'a few' in the third of @KarlLB's three criteria does that even make his list at all. Yet it bounced the latest from Ukraine, crises in the health sector, continued incompetence by government, or, for that matter, the impasse in the US House of Representatives. That was in the news here two evenings ago but I still haven't heard whether it's got a Speaker yet.
No. The members-elect of the House of Representatives are still indulging Kevin McCarthy's public humiliation fetish. And yes, the fact that the U.S. Congress can't pass any legislation until this is taken care of is both problematic and newsworthy.
Nothing of note has happened recently in the Ukraine war, and the NHS is in the same state it was a day, week or month ago. The US House Speaker issue is of interest, perhaps, but has no real or direct impact for people in the UK.
Do you have a specific new case of government incompetence that you think should have been covered, or are you in effect asking for the news to become a several-times-daily party political broadcast on behalf of the Opposition?
I've no particular interest in adjudicating who is right and who is wrong in this particular dysfunctional family (for all that the press attacks on the Sussexes make me amenable to them), but the toxic intertwining of personal life with public role is worthy of discussion. Anyone who who has been a vicarage child with have a small inkling of the effect of that lack of boundaries, but the effect on the Royals will be 100 times worse.
I have no particular animosity towards them - I just have no reason to care about them any more than I would care about any other random human.
Probably some of what is in the Duke's book is true, some is lies, and some is a rather skewed view of what actually happened, just like any other book written by someone on one side of a rather nasty squabble.
Yes, in former times a dissatisfied English royal would go to France, raise money and troops, and "appeal to heaven" to redress his issues. Publishing a gossipy book is definitely a change.
That's a good point, and also funny. How are the mighty fallen, who once donned armour and sword, now use Netflix. I suppose we have gained, fewer people dead, and lost in terms of nobility. Who now would cry out, "God for Harry, England and St George"?
You might say, why should Brits care about Brazil - but election denial followed by violence is becoming a concerning international trend amongst countries that had previously managed to avoid it.
It made headlines in the US today but I don't know how long US news outlets will pay attention to it. The parallels to Jan. 6 are eerie (although luckily, it being a Sunday and Lula being out of town, the seats of all three branches of government that were stormed were empty). The scale of the damage done to the buildings, furniture, and art seems to outstrip Jan. 6, even if the risk to the lives of the President, Members of Congress, and Supreme Court Judges was lower. Steve Bannon has cheered the invasion on, of course. And Bolsonaro is in self-imposed exile (for the time being) renting a Mixed-Martial-Artist's home outside Orlando, Florida, insisting he had nothing to do with it. 🙄
I worry that these types of things are going to become more common in even more countries where the peaceful transfer of power has been taken as a given for decades or more.
Yes another local paper of my acquaintance ran a poll and reported that people wanted "less stabbings."
Contrast that to Cambridge where nothing outside Addenbrookes Hospital, the University or high court judges seems to be considered newsworthy.
On Devon radio there was always a story about food and a travel update on the Torpoint ferry (never all working). My all time favourite is the news report that gave Exeter City centre at a standstill as a result of an escaped goat.
Plus, of course, Jair Bolsonaro is, how shall I put this, a bit trumpy.
It gave a lot of folks a sense of déjà coup.
At its root that's what all these claims of "election fraud" come down to; some citizens "fraudulently" asserting that their votes count the same as everyone else's.