What You Don’t Know Can’t Hurt You.. Or Can It?

As I continue my studies into the world of media, I’m becoming more aware of how much is not said in mainstream news.

This is where the idea of what is chosen to become news fits in. There are a number of ‘news values’ that are used to sort out what will ultimately be featured in the news. These include:

Cultural proximity – Does the story have similarities to that of the country it is broadcasting in?

Relevance – Is it new? Current?

Rarity – Is it unexpected?

Continuity – If it has already been ‘news’, will it continue to be news but to a lesser degree?

Elite references – Are there any key nations involved or key people?

Negativity – Why is it that bad news gets more attention than happy stories?

Composition – Is there a balance of different news stories?

Personalization – seeing the ‘human side’ of people eg if the president has kissed a baby

With all these things to consider (on top of the cost to get the stories and how much time there is to broadcast) it can get quite easy for the mainstream media to leave out some key information or just whole stories altogether. How an issue is framed is also key to understanding how something is discussed in the news. For example the asylum seeker debate in Australia has both supporters and criticizers depending on how the story was framed.

Some critics argue that news content these days is ‘homogenized’ and ‘domesticized’ due to the number of filters information has to go through to match up to domestic audience tastes. This video questions what makes a story newsworthy and the objectives of news  broadcast stations in the US:

That said, there are a few avenues that account for the problem of domesticized news, namely global media such as BBC World News, Al Jazeera and of course, the internet!

Foreign affairs are somewhat left in a vacuum if they do not relate to a particular country and thus are not covered in depth during prime news channels. In Peter Lee-Wright’s article on news values, Al Jazeera is identified as one of the most trustworthy sites when it comes to reporting news, particularly in regards to the Arab world. Another good thing about Al Jazeera Lee-Wright notes is that it gives a voice to the oppressed, rather than just sticking to ‘authoritative’ personnel (which is great). We need to be able to see news stories from different angles to become well versed in issues both domestic and foreign.

The thing with news is that it is not always black and white. The media have to find a balance between how much information is put in a story and what the audience needs to know. We as the audience also need to take into account the purpose of certain news broadcast stations and what side they seem to be leading us to believe so that we too can figure out if there are any sides to the story we need to hear about.