bc494010@ohio.edu
Quality Over Ratings
A part of being a journalist is being ethical and delivering news that the people need to know. Another part of news is giving people information that they want to know. Then there is the part of journalism that focuses on what is going to get the most viewers. There seems to be a trend with the news giving people news that they are going to be interested in, rather than things that they should be learning about. Lately a topic of high discussion on national news is the heated debate of a little country called Syria. While many top news stations are taking a larger portion out of their day to discuss the U.S. government's involvement in Syria and other topics, many local news stations take a short 90-second segment to discuss the new situation and move on to stories about local fires and car crashes. A good question to ask is: Should local news stations give people more of what they should know or more of what they want to know?
Business is Business
Unfortunately in today's world, even the news is a business. Broadcast stations have to give people information on local news like car accidents, house fires, the weather and city council meetings. Without keeping lots of local information in local news segments, people would become disinterested and the networks would lose viewers. While people may be interested in hearing about Syria and the possible global impact that it could have, people are going to be more interested on a local news story about robberies in their area because it hits closer to home. But is this better for people? Global issues have a large impact on lives at home even though the issues could be thousands of miles away in foreign countries. This is where journalists face ethics. Should you go for the ratings or go for what the people need to know?
Good Journalism is Good Business
This is where local journalists could be missing a huge opportunity. There is a way to show people more of the harder hitting stories across the globe and keep the ratings that they need. This quote above means that when you have good journalism then it will become good business. Part of being a good, ethical journalist is to make a story relatable. If a journalist on a local news station tells about the situation in Syria and how this can affect average, everyday Americans, people are going to be a lot more interested: http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/reports/article/102836/No-Such-Thing-as-Foreign-Anymore.aspx
Hit Hard, Take Time, Prove Ethics
I think the bottom line is to take the time to figure out how the larger global stories are going to relate to the people of smaller towns. News needs to steer away from getting the most traffic as the top priority. The top priority is getting out the best journalism possible. Thinking of the quote, "If you build it, they will come" is another way of thinking about it. If you put out high impact and relatable stories, then people are going to continue to follow the news source because of its quality.
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