Woes of the mainstream media

Posted on | May 26, 2006 | Comments Off

Rob Frankel, in his most recent blog post on the consuming topic of branding, begins his schpiel by grousing about the media.

For some reason, the world’s attention never seems to focus on the really important stuff. A little while back, for example, the Los Angeles Times carried an article in which a particular breed of lab mouse was shown to possess a gene that literally destroyed cancer cells. Apparently, these mice treated cancer just like any other kind of infection, surrounding the foreign intruder, killing it and disposing of it. All without any side effects whatsoever.

To make things more impressive, the gene could be transplanted into other mice with the very same (and permanent result). The implications of this discovery are immense. What research scientists have stumbled upon may, quite soon, prove to be the magic bullet sought by humans to kill off cancer with no toxic side effects.

That’s incredible news, I grant you. Which is why the Los Angeles Times managed to bury it, ranking its importance somewhat below that of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s new baby and whether Jennifer Aniston’s gig with Vince Vaughn is for real.

Now, this topic was not the point of his post but this is the piece of it that really captured my attention (sorry, Rob, but with this kind of provocative stuff, I may or may not get to the rest of the post). In a way, it is a vivid illustration of the crossroads that is afflicting the news business, and newspapers, in general.

Once upon a time, newspaper editors made decisions about story placement based on what information was important to the community. Now, they base those decisions on what will sell the most newspapers or — to put a less mercenary slant on it — what the public seems to care about.

Sadly, as often as not, the public wants to be entertained whenever possible. But the public also needs to be informed, whether they come right out and admit that or not. And I believe it’s an insult to their intelligence to assume that you have to get sallacious to capture their attention. The fact is that when newspapers run stories about stuff that matters, people do read them.

When newspapers run celebrity gossip, as often as not, people don’t read them. People know that’s not information they really need, so why bother?

I get the distinct impression that, at least in the mainstream media, there’s a lot of tension between corporate and editorial, because corporate cares about making money while editorial cares about reporting the news. What’s unfortunate is that corporate doesn’t seem to get that when you’re in the newspaper business, the way to make money is to … well, um … report the news.

Oy.