Saturday, June 2, 2007
Pre-chewed news
We all know that many news stories these days are colored red or blue by writers or editors intent on perpetrating their political viewpoint rather than 'mere' facts. Annoying as that is, it's fairly easy to discern when it comes to governmental or political issues. Far more alarming is that information is simply left out in order to put a story forward in a particular way with a particular emphasis.
Witness the National Spelling Bee. The finals took place last Thursday night and were televised on ABC, surprisingly exciting television according both to ratings and to those who watched, several NYC news anchors among them. Most surprising, however, was the New York Times story on Friday morning. For myself, reading the paper on the train, I was delighted to see a front page story on it but quickly became disappointed when I realized I had too early an edition, the conclusion I drew because it was a human interest piece about a 12-year-old from India in his third attempt to win the prize.
But this morning, as I was reading news online as is my Saturday morning wont, I discovered that my Friday Times hadn't been an early edition and the story was the one about the finals, although they didn't mention the results or the winner until the part you had to turn the page for. Why, you ask? What kind of news writing is that, you ask (lede in the first sentence and all, right)? The answer is that this writing is guided by an agenda. Writing first about the second place finisher (see first paragraph, above) allowed emphasis on implications and suggestions about immigration and foreign relations. And that pushed rest of the story to the second page. And it turns out that the winner is a 13-year-old Californian who is homeschooled. So what? Well, participants' public and private schools are usually mentioned and touted with lots of fanfare, but even the fact of his homeschooling wasn't mentioned. Why not? If it's a political agenda, I'm confused: some homeschooling parents are conservatives but some are quite the opposite. The academic issue, however, is important and interesting, and part of the facts about this year's contest. What kind of journalism simply omits germane facts altogether?
Witness the National Spelling Bee. The finals took place last Thursday night and were televised on ABC, surprisingly exciting television according both to ratings and to those who watched, several NYC news anchors among them. Most surprising, however, was the New York Times story on Friday morning. For myself, reading the paper on the train, I was delighted to see a front page story on it but quickly became disappointed when I realized I had too early an edition, the conclusion I drew because it was a human interest piece about a 12-year-old from India in his third attempt to win the prize.
But this morning, as I was reading news online as is my Saturday morning wont, I discovered that my Friday Times hadn't been an early edition and the story was the one about the finals, although they didn't mention the results or the winner until the part you had to turn the page for. Why, you ask? What kind of news writing is that, you ask (lede in the first sentence and all, right)? The answer is that this writing is guided by an agenda. Writing first about the second place finisher (see first paragraph, above) allowed emphasis on implications and suggestions about immigration and foreign relations. And that pushed rest of the story to the second page. And it turns out that the winner is a 13-year-old Californian who is homeschooled. So what? Well, participants' public and private schools are usually mentioned and touted with lots of fanfare, but even the fact of his homeschooling wasn't mentioned. Why not? If it's a political agenda, I'm confused: some homeschooling parents are conservatives but some are quite the opposite. The academic issue, however, is important and interesting, and part of the facts about this year's contest. What kind of journalism simply omits germane facts altogether?
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| posted by jau at 8:19 AM
jau — at 11:14 PM, June 05, 2007:
| posted by jau at 8:19 AM
2 more:
jau — at 11:14 PM, June 05, 2007:
You're very fortunate to have worked at a good paper, Mark. Where??! My local paper, which isn't bad in some ways, can't even get names and times right when they're given typed results of school sports. In case biased stories wasn't annoying enough.
I completely agree with you about the dreadful current cultural phenomenon of trying to eliminate competition ("everyone who participates is a winner!") in this extremely competitive world. I'd think we could use more strength and excellence these days, not less.
I completely agree with you about the dreadful current cultural phenomenon of trying to eliminate competition ("everyone who participates is a winner!") in this extremely competitive world. I'd think we could use more strength and excellence these days, not less.
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Great piece here. It's disturbing that such a major paper with so much influence (all the way down to journalism classes) pulls this kind of stunt. Maybe it also was part of an agenda to downplay the concept of competition. That's a huge mistake in today's culture because the US workplace is as competitive as ever (if not moreso) and children are not being exposed to it early enough. Maybe we should have a more cooperative culture, but we don't, and we're sending kids out completely unprepared for it.
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