I made an exciting discovery on my recent visit to York to see my brother - the glossy York News. Advertising itself as "the good news newspaper" the free rag was being forced on every passer-by, rivaling the frantic distribution methods of the capital's London Paper and the London Lite.
Like the journalism student that I am, when a copy was thrust into my hands I immediately hunted down the closest bench to give it a once over. The idea just didn't work in my mind - how can a newspaper survive on just good news alone? The stories that sell papers on a daily basis are laced with crime, death, tragedy and scandal, and our national and regional papers are well aware of that. Was this paper going to plug a gap in the market that I had not even noticed, or was it a vain attempt to be different?
With great hope for the paper, my heart sank as I read the first few stories...I had the answer to my question. Good news, it seems in this case anyway, cannot be done in bulk and stems largely from council press releases being repeated verbatim, without using any journalistic skills to investigate an alterior angle.
It came across as sickening and lazy journalism. Anyone pushing an angle - whether for a charity, a government department, or a company - can and will produce a story with a good, positive spin on it. But it is our job as journalists to see through that to the real story, something which was not done in York News for the sake of "good news". The paper's content could only be deemed "good" because it simply was not news...news articles have to be comprehensive and cover a story from all angles, otherwise they are merely propaganda.
The York News was only a week old when I first came across it, so let's see whether it can find itself a market. Good news is out there, but lets face it, it will always be bad news that sells our papers.
Wednesday, 26 March 2008
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
so negative huh?
is it really just bad news that sells? i thought the sun sold becasue of page 3 and the "sports news" - though i guess that is nearly always bad news for someone!
perhaps the press think we're only interested in the bad news? the bbc most read article thingamugiggy nearly always has funny/bizarre news at the top - maybe thats what we want? a sort of beano-cum-private eye?
anyway i'd have to agree that parroting press releases is never good journalism!
you'll have to keep us informed of the "good news" paper's progress (sounds like a biblical venture now! - from bad to worse!)
I agree Kat, and think it's actually really sad that all the public is interested in is bad news. It's almost like people lap up bad news for the same reasons that they watch Eastenders - to make them realise that their own lives are perhaps not as bad as they first thought.
Good luck to any good news newspaper that doesn't rely on propaganda!
Yeah, but how awful would life have to be for 'event happens without disaster' to be classed as newsworthy?
Post a Comment