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​LOPEZ: Don’t blame journalists for giving the people what they want

Audiences drive the coverage of negative events like shootings and natural disasters

On a daily basis, the United States confronts a wide range of major events that are of interest and concern to the American people. Journalism — along with advancements in technology and media outlets used by reporters — enables the 21st century average American to enjoy the privilege of being handed a synthesis of events along with informative facts that allow him to keep track of even the most recent local, national and international incidents. However, concerning trends have emerged in American journalism and reporting. Ratings have become the most decisive methods by which the media shapes the type of news it delivers, occasionally stirring up some speculation on media bias. Along with this trend criticisms have surfaced of how the media gathers information and delivers it to the public.

What makes the media attractive to many people are the types of topics it covers. Of course, one could categorize these topics in a wide variety of ways, but for the sake of the argument I will focus on two main categories: “bad” news and “good” news — and it seems Americans love bad news. This is no wild allegation: a 50-page study conducted by the Pew Research Center for People & the Press in 2007 revealed — through 165 distinct national surveys — that news preference for Americans has remained “surprisingly static” throughout the last two decades. The study has ranked war and terrorism at the top since 1986, the first year of the study. Following these top two contenders are “Bad Weather” and “Manmade Disasters.” Sounds kind of morbid; where’s the good news? Science, technology and foreign news not directly related to the United States are ranked lowest by the public. The study suggests Americans tend to prefer “bad” news. Is the media creating a sensationalist and negative news bias, or are they just responding to the public’s statistical preference of bad news over good?

According to neuroscientists and psychologists, our brains evolved in a hunting-gathering atmosphere in which any dramatic event needed our immediate attention for survival. Our brains have not changed this drama-seeking setting, and we still find ourselves subjectively attentive to dramatic events while surprisingly bored by less-intriguing occasions. If the media relies on traffic, circulation and ratings, it is only logical to focus and shape news reporting toward whatever is on the top spot of human interest — which simply happens to be bad and drama-driven news. The importance of these findings lies within the implication about the subconscious human desire and preference for seeing bad and drama-driven news on the headlines, and the implication of a lack of a negative news media bias.

However, the alleged media bias is not the only attack on the news industry. The methods by which reporters attempt to gather and convey information receive criticism from various sectors of the public. In the wake of the recent Umpqua Community College shooting, a student sent out a tweet that described the horrific scene she was witnessing. Below the tweet, the only replies one could see were by reporters from different news media outlets that insisted on contacting her in order to gather more information on what was occurring. The public quickly lashed out at the reporters’ inconsiderateness in contacting an individual who was threatened by great danger and witnessing such a terrifying scene. However, who is at fault here? Is it the reporters for carrying out the actions, the producers for demanding such an approach from the reporters or the American public for perpetuating, through ratings and circulation, the same actions they criticize? I believe it’s the producers who are at fault for demanding the unethical approach taken by most reporters gathering information. One should not criticize the journalistic practices of an individual reporter, but rather condemn the involved news media entity as a whole. Reporters are the ones who have constantly put themselves in the ethical and moral battlefield of gathering the facts the information-thirsty public craves. And their jobs, solely based on and shaped by the public and employers’ interests, should not be attacked by those whom they seek to please.

If you witness a reporter purposely providing the public with the identity of a shooter after showing footage of a sheriff explicitly giving in a press conference an ethical reason for why his identity is and should not be made known, it is okay to think of hypocrisy. But think about it a bit longer and you realize that making this decision is merely a stunt that goes beyond the notion of hypocrisy. It is a news station trying to maintain an advantageous edge over its competitors. Barry Petchesky, in his discussion “Reporting Is Ugly,” wrote: “The public may say it doesn’t want the horrible details; ratings, circulation, and traffic say the public is lying.” And he is right. A news station always faces a tough decision when reporting information: high quality of ratings or a highly ethical approach toward reporting the event at hand. The two are inversely related. In most situations, high quality of ratings involves reporting information that is more easily gathered avoiding ethical guidelines. If a news station chooses an ethical approach toward reporting certain events, while other stations do not, its traffic could be enormously affected as people switch their TV channels to look for other stations that provide what they want. This will always be the norm unless there is a unanimous agreement in journalism to change the approach toward gathering information for news coverages.

Carlos Lopez is a Viewpoint writer.

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