What's News? – Why Is It That Only Stories of Unusual, Unfortunate and Unhappy Events Get Reported in the Daily Paper?

[The] story is told of a music critic who was sent to a concert
hall in Chicago to review a performance. When he found the hall burning
down, he went home and went to bed. In the morning he explained, “There
was no story. The concert hall burned down.”

I trust these stories are apocryphal, but they serve to illustrate the difficulty of defining news.

There is some truth in the statement that good news is not news. Good
news is the stuff of life. It is what happens to most of us most of the
time. We survive. We prosper.

But if happiness was all we had to read about, we’d be very bored indeed. — Jack Smith, LA Times (1987)

Share
Published by
Dennis G. Jerz

Recent Posts

The choreographer daughter is doing a thing.

The choreographer daughter is doing a thing.

2 days ago

So I’m starting a thing. Wish me luck. #blender3d #medieval #york #mysteryplay #corpuschristi

So I’m starting a thing. Wish me luck. #blender3d #medieval #york #mysteryplay #corpuschristi

2 days ago

No interior yet. Getting there. Gotta start somewhere. Low-poly background detail for a medieval theater project. #blender3d

No interior yet. Getting there. Gotta start somewhere. Low-poly background detail for a medieval theater…

2 days ago

This is manageable. Far better than some semesters.

This is manageable. Far better than some semesters.

3 days ago

Creating textures for background buildings in a medieval theater simulation project. I can always improve this later. #blender3d

Creating textures for background buildings in a medieval theater simulation project. I can always improve…

4 days ago

Yesterday my stack of unmarked assignments was about 120, so this is not bad.

Nothing in this stack is pressing, but they do include rough drafts of final papers,…

5 days ago