What is news?

Art work by Rafael Buelna  Updated
Every election is important!
I recently rewrote this article because the U.S is headed into election or the 2010 midterm and the 2012 electioneering has already begun. So let me start of again by stating the obvious,


Every Election is important.

No big news maker there folks! Nevertheless we hear that phrase often. In the U.S. we seem to have problems on election night that have been, well, beyond reasonable at times. What kind of problems? Any election that ends up in a court of law did not go smoothly. The losing party, up and down the ranks, become upset with the results and quietly vows to through as many wrenches into the mechanics of the new administrations goals as possible. While most strategist, to the left and to the right, understand this behavior as par for the course, they explicitly deny the impact of this post election carry over hatred. Leadership plays the hate down and cues its lower ranks on how to express their angry energy.

So not understanding how news is seeded, nurtured, harvested, packaged and sold is a problem for any citizen but especially of an emerging Democracy. All information is processed in one way or another. Assuming one understands what NEWS is does little to improve democracy, the lives of citizens or your.  own life and understanding.  In the United States, the bargain, between the press and its citizens was that the legitimate media would benefit from the protection of citizens, immortalized in the constitution (Freedom of The Press), and in exchange they (the people) would benefit from receiving bonafide information. That is why the phrase "Press Pass" gets a journalist or reporter into an event. With this bonafide information, the citizen makes their informed political choices. Although citizens can not expect the media to be altruistic, the media can expect that the public will read its information (professionally laid out, thoroughly thought out article, vetted well, scoop of the decade, news flash: Extra! Extra!) What happens or  what reactions occur after an article goes to press, well, nobody can really know, but we do know they hoped to sell papers, bi-weeklies, magazines, etc.

Vetted well, this means that the reporter, the media source (paper, network news, magazine, etc) performed their due diligence. The constitution and the paper (the reporter write for) protects the reporter and the article is a piece of bonafide information the people expect the media to deliver and which is they protect. Nevertheless, it is important to remember that the "news media" is always struggling with a question. Pander to the lust of the crowd or hand them the tools they need to make an informed decision? The former moves the product and the latter delivers the news. For example, the crowd, like some people in our society lust for the instant gratification of, say, cocaine or that methamphetamine provides. Addicts like to have their cravings satisfied and likewise newspapers or the media publish news that panders to cravings. The media mixes in a well investigated News report here and there but in order to get the attention of enough viewers or readers to justify investing in advertisement. Can anyone blame them for trying to make a buck?

If we continue with the metaphor a little longer, the news is that this lust, the drug addicction, leads to death unless treatment is sought out and available. In other words research and experience has shown that using these drugs is dangerous because of addiction, the dangers of buying drugs, the costs to your body, mind, loved ones, society etc. With all this information people still get addicted every day. Addicts themselves can explain all of this but the need to instantly gratify an addiction is so strong that the user persists.

Try something with me for one moment, please. In the paragraph above, third sentence, replaced the word “crowd” with "democracy." What you get is pander to the lust of democracy or hand them the tools they need to make an informed decision. The News" will only pander to the addiction (by delivering instant gratification) instead of informing democracy of its pending doom unless it (society) makes decisions based on bonafide information "and this information is available when sought out. For example, when U.S citizens needed to have bonifide information about weapons of mass destruction before entering into the war in Iraq, the media did not perform its job. The “news” sources that insisted that WMDs were a real threat out scaled the news sources that were skeptical about WMDs in quantity and quality.  There were more news sources reporting uncertainty about the existence of WMDs than news sources reporting certainty that there were no WMDs. In amplitude, the media that reported uncertainty were clear about their message and repeatedly sent out their message of uncertainty.


Put another way, most people, including those individuals belonging to a Democracy, lusts for instant gratification. An example of instant gratifications is a car chase video that is played over and over again on the news. If learning about important issues that actually effect our day to day living brought in ratings then we would see and hear these videos played over and over again but we do not. It is true that "if it bleeds it leads" but it leads because people want to watch that leading, bleeding story but the new motto should be if it bleeds we tease. The news media teases their audience with a leading story through commercial breaks up until the last ten minutes of a new program like CNN’s “The Situation Room.” This is why watching “the news” with out a DVR is a waste of time.


Driving down a highway notice traffic form around an accident scene where professional emergency teams have already arrived. The accident is over, to the side of the road and  is not effecting the flow of traffic but because of an unmentionable, sadistic need to look at the "crash" people slow their cars down and create traffic. This need to look is usually masqueraded with "concern for the victim." Apposing traffic begins to back up because they have to stop and take a close look at a gruesome sight.


Another example of "instant gratification" is when the news would rather spend time with nonsense than continue to hammer away at important issues. Michael Moore was once pumbed from an hour appearance on Larry King Live in order to give the time slot to Paris Hilton. No offence to Paris Hilton, it's just that, it would have added greatly to her new personification if she would have honorably declined the time slot. Mr. Moore was going to speak about healthcare and important issues (agree with him or not) but since ratings means money Paris Hilton got the spot.


Climate Change, FOX news would rather insinuate that snow is evidence of how environmental alarmist conspiracy thinking has gotten everyone worried about nothing. From today, 02/11/2010, until election day 2012 it is important for the bonifide media to report on the science of this issue in quantity, quality and amplitude so that the public can make an informed decision. It was the wrong idea to call climate change “global warming” because it seems difficult to comprehend by the general public. That global warming leads to climate pattern changes and odd weather distribution, distortions (extreme heat, rain, cold) is difficult to grasp. For many people, the FOX news analysis of Global warming makes intuitive sense and is too tempting not to adopt.


Here the media or news fails to meet the bargain it made with our forebears. The media needs money and the public needs real bonifide news. News papers are dying according to some indicators and bloggers, apparently, aren’t professional journalists.  A blogger has no one to protect them but anonymity. A reporter can be bailed out of jail by their newpaper. In other words, there is a lot of talk about this new world of “citizen reporter” but where are their protectors? Why doesn’t the citizen reporter get a press pass? Which paper will stand by their citizen reporter or CNNs’ “I Reporters” when that reporter gets into a legal problem or a dangerous situation? Can we be sure that the blogger has vetted the story?  Think about the recent story that cought the NAACP and the president by surprise: the Shirley Sherrod saga that thrust the USDA employee into the national spotlight, the conservative blogger

So, the news media, mainstream, will tease a bleeder as much as possible and bloggers can’t be trusted. Newspapers are dying and few people these day’s have money for an online subscription. A new citizen of a democracy would have a difficult time ascertaining what news to absorb. Earlier it was stated that not understanding how news is seeded, nurtured, harvested, packaged and sold is a problem for any citizen but especially of an emerging Democracy. All information is processed in one way or another it is up to the person to consciously absorb what information they want and to let go of information they do not need.


To say that news is seeded, nurtured, harvested, packaged and sold is to imply that it is intended to be absorbed like food. Information can act as a nutrient but can also have negative effect on a person, just read any Shakespeare ( “The comedy of Errors” has long been my particular favorite). To say that information is like food is a simile older than Shakespeare. Nevertheless, the problem of what to eat, how much to eat and what not to eat is still a problem. In Haiti, the recent earthquake has made life very difficult. Electricity is hard to come by these days and so is the internet. Wireless devices worked until they ran out of power and then generators burned up gasoline to recharge phones and keep lights on in certain places. How are Haitians getting their news, news papers or internet, television? Get to it reportes. The health care reform has no mandate but new taxes, how will reporters handle this issue? Immigration -- the issue is all about the process -- but will the media explore that aspect of this hot topic?




By Rafael Buelna