RESEARCH < posted November 5, 2001 >

NEWS
Quotes and other relevant research finding related to the category of news.


news n. (usu. with a sing. v.)
1. a report of a recent event; information: to hear news of a relative.
2. a report on a recent or new event in a newspaper or other periodical or on on radio or television.
3. such reports taken collectively; information reported: to listen to the news. 4. a person event, etc., regarded as newsworthy material.
5. a newspaper
[1425-1475; late ME newis, pl. of newe newe thing, novelty (see NEW); on the model of MF noveles (pl. of novele). or ML nova (pl. of novum: see NOVEL2] -news'less, adj.

- Definition from Webster's College Dictionary ©1991

jour•nal•ism n.
1. the collection and editing of news for presentation through the media
2. newspapers and magazines; the public press.
3. an academic study concerned with the collection and editing of news or the management of a news medium,
4. writing designed for publication in a newspaper or magazine.
5. writing characterized by a direct presentation of facts or description of events without an attempt at interpretation.
6. writing designed to appeal to current popular taste or public interest.
[1825-35; < F journalisme]

- Combined definition from Webster's College Dictionary ©1991 & Merriam-Webster's on-line Collegiate Dictionary (www.m-w.com) accessed on 11.3.01

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Jack Driscoll's seven criteria for news:
1. Newness or timeliness
2. Importance (serious matter, affects many, etc.)
3. High general interest to reader
4. Relevance
5. Involves public's right to know
6. Involves public's need to know
7. Whether story informs, educates, guides or entertains reader

[Accessed online at: http://walter.www.media.mit.edu/people/walter/]

Note: John S. (Jack) Driscoll has been Editor-in-Residence at the MIT Media Laboratory since 1995. Previously he was at the Boston Globe for nearly 40 years, seven as Editor.

I question the criteria "entertain," what is meant by that, and why the news should entertain?

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"When it comes to information, citizens now are overwhelmed with its quantity and skeptical of its quality. Fewer journalists and media consumers are separating out the important information from the false diversions, and fewer still seem ready to reward the truth...Appearances have become more important than facts."

"A scandal--any scandal--tends to take priority now over other news, as the networks run in tabloid panic after their fragmenting audiences."

"Ironically, many journalists genuinely are trying to serve the public interest, reporting the "tough stories" and "difficult facts" in each new scandal. Yet too few editors and producers recognize that serving the public interest is not the same as simply serving what the public is interested in. Just because sex scandals and celebrities are interesting doesn't mean they should replace other news. Similarly, just because the new media technologies enable television to go "live" to show the unfolding drama of a man's freeway suicide, it does not mean that journalists are serving the public interest by doing so."

"Thanks to the Internet, there are no deadlines, space constraints or excuses. Journalism can be much more accurate, thoughtful and complete. A constant deadline means no deadline, so a journalist now has whatever time is needed to check out the facts. And whatever can't fit into the old media container (the print news story or newscast) can be put onto the companion Website. There is a bottomless news hole."

"Since anyone can throw half-baked material onto their Websites in order to be "first," why do we need journalists at all, if they aren't going to offer the benefits of verification, relevance and context?"

"Throwing accuracy to the winds undermines the credibility of the news brand. Better to build the brand by offering them a consistently trustworthy, accessible place to go for news."

"Test the democracy quotient by asking, how much of this new channel is taken up with pundit score-keeping, celebrity gossip and voyeur crime news, issue-free animal features, sports, entertainment and weather programs? The transformation in particular of MS/NBC from a promising television/Internet laboratory to a scandal news service has been disheartening. Neil Postman's lament--that we are "amusing ourselves to death"--has never seemed more accurate."

"our popular culture has been turned inside out. What should be private is now becoming public, and what should be public is being privatized."

"Veteran newsman Robert MacNeil argues that substantive "issue" news is less interesting to people now because there are no major overriding public policy issues as there were when the nuclear threat hung over the world during the Cold War. But this inattention is more a failure of civic imagination and journalistic effort. We are likely to look back some years from now as some major challenge demands our action, and say, as we did with the Savings and Loan crisis, "why didn't we see this coming?" The stakes are particularly high in America; as this democracy reigns as the world's leading superpower, its public priorities and actions resonate beyond our borders."

"Resource journalism attempts to offer thorough but unbiased reporting, assembling for citizens the authentic information they need to make civic choices. It seeks to enlist not only the traditional charms of television, radio and print but the interactivity and depth afforded by the Internet. Resource journalism provides historical context, local, national and international reference points, and tries to answer "compared to what?" It tries to explain "why does this matter to the average American?" Resource journalism works to combine news about problems with news about a range of potential solutions to those problems, but it does not seek to encourage any particular action. Through carefully curated Websites, resource journalism tries to offer a relevant selection of deeper information resources, a range of clearly labeled, diverse opinions, and interactive access points for citizens who may want to get involved."

"Clearly not every breaking news story can be spun into all of these forms. But a thoughtful news organization could divert some of the time, talent and money now spent on chasing the entertainment side of politics and culture, and instead assemble an updatable set of interactive, multimedia resources about the top 10 issues that will shape our nation's future...resource journalism was developed by PBS's Democracy Project in the spring of 1997 when it was presented with the need to cover, with limited resources, the prospect of unlimited daily Congressional campaign finance hearings in both the Senate and House."

"There has been some concern, as PBS has experimented with such multimedia projects, that the Internet Websites might divert audiences from the television programs. But PBS has found that many viewers are online at the same time as they are watching television, using both at once. FRONTLINE, PBS's documentary series, has pioneered separate but complementary "webumentaries,"18 as well as a moving webmarker bug along the bottom of the screen which prompts viewers to go to PBSOnline for more information about the subject of the program."

"These projects all carry the hallmarks of resource journalism, including complementary local and national news, interactive background information that is useful to citizens, a citizen soapbox, and educational tools."

[source: Hume, Ellen. "Resource Journalism: A Model for New Media" posted: May 17, 1998 from a complete transcript of Hume's talk at the Democracy and Digital Media Conference held at MIT on May 8-9, 1998. Accessed online on at:
http://media-in-transition.mit.edu/articles/index_hume.html ]