Sunday, September 12, 2010
Soft News
For anyone who studies the American media system or for anyone who consumes it, you know all to well that the content is full of information designed to entertain us or overload our senses--or in academic terms--there is just too much soft news in our media.
Soft news, according to leading academics, is news that contains sensational story presentation, lots of dramatics, human interest themes, crime and violence, and is generally devoid of content that makes us capable of either keeping those who exercise power accountable or making selections about who best represents our interests. Soft news has been on the rise since the early 1970s as our media system has lurched towards more and more profits. Since soft news is easy to produce (it doesn't require analysis or context), it can be done with minimal staff and resources.
Television is by far the greatest user of soft news given what can done audio-visually--the display of crime while accompanying the story with ominous musical tones--it is not alone in allowing more soft news in. For instance, in a study conducted by Thomas Patterson ten years ago, he found that over a 20 year period, print news had included substantially more and more soft news stories--gossip, crime, etc.--than at any point in the past.
To give you a sense of how prevalent soft news is, the Associated Press (AP) more or less demands it of the freelancers looking to get published. For example, the AP Minnesota tells its potential contributors that it wants:
At a time when the news industry is struggling, there focus should be on less soft news and not more. As Patterson argued, soft news is responsible in part for the decline in the audience for the MSM. And yet, in the face of the evidence to the contrary, the news industry seems compelled to continue giving us more.
Soft news, according to leading academics, is news that contains sensational story presentation, lots of dramatics, human interest themes, crime and violence, and is generally devoid of content that makes us capable of either keeping those who exercise power accountable or making selections about who best represents our interests. Soft news has been on the rise since the early 1970s as our media system has lurched towards more and more profits. Since soft news is easy to produce (it doesn't require analysis or context), it can be done with minimal staff and resources.
Television is by far the greatest user of soft news given what can done audio-visually--the display of crime while accompanying the story with ominous musical tones--it is not alone in allowing more soft news in. For instance, in a study conducted by Thomas Patterson ten years ago, he found that over a 20 year period, print news had included substantially more and more soft news stories--gossip, crime, etc.--than at any point in the past.
To give you a sense of how prevalent soft news is, the Associated Press (AP) more or less demands it of the freelancers looking to get published. For example, the AP Minnesota tells its potential contributors that it wants:
- Train wrecks, airplane crashes, fatal auto accidents, and unusual deaths;
- Riots, demonstrations, strikes;
- Unusual bank robberies (?);
- Human interest stories. The odd, the offbeat, the heart-warming.
At a time when the news industry is struggling, there focus should be on less soft news and not more. As Patterson argued, soft news is responsible in part for the decline in the audience for the MSM. And yet, in the face of the evidence to the contrary, the news industry seems compelled to continue giving us more.
