One of the most important elements of journalism is to only report on newsworthy things. Without it, the news wouldn't really be news, it would just be information. The difference being that instead of reporting on things that deserve our attention the majority of the air time would be taken up by things we don't need to know. Primarily because most of these things wouldn't affect our lives in a longstanding form, if at all. That is why we, as journalists, must try our hardest to keep true to this extremely important element of journalism.
However I have recently noticed that one of the main news reporting industries in the US has not kept true to this element. CNN quite recently chose to do a story on Ahmed Mohamed, a 14 year old, living in Irving, Texas whom was arrested for bringing a clock to school. The clock had been a science project he had made himself out of a pencil case. The teacher was not impressed but in fact believed she was being threatened due to this young ninth graders race and religion. Now this story may be shocking, entertaining or possibly upsetting, but that doesn't make it news. This story lacks almost all the criteria: this will most likely not affect you, (unless you are the boy, that teacher or possibly his parents) even if this story did affect you, it lacks the longevity to affect you long enough to make it newsworthy, and lastly it is barely significant, it might be worthy of a school newspaper, but certainly not a national news organization. You can find the article I've critiqued here.
I disagree; the story is clearly of national significance given the following factors:
ReplyDelete1. As a nation, we're trying to encourage STEM education. We want kids to be tinkering and experimenting with science and technology.
2. In this post-9/11 world, some would argue that hypervigilance, particularly when it comes to Muslims, is necessary. Others, of course, argue that this vigilance is actually Islamophobic hysteria and is utterly unnecessary. This ongoing national conversation is the context framing Ahmed's story, thus making it newsworthy.
3. As a nation we are also having an ongoing conversation about the wisdom of zero tolerance policies. Many prominent thinkers have argued that Ahmed's fate was not the result of racism or Islamophobia, but of overzealous zero tolerance programs. That's also a good reason for national coverage.