About Social Media Today
There is a telling comment on a story published yesterday in the Newburyport Daily News. Responding to a headline and content about why the city is leading other communities in Census returns, an anonymous person asks, “Why is this news?”
Good question.
Sadly, it’s not news. Most of the filler we read in newspapers and on websites and blogs, watch on TV, and listen to on the radio is not news. If you believe the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism’s study of 53 local media outlets in Baltimore, Maryland in July 2009, a whopping 83% of content is recycled.
Of the 17% that did contain new information, nearly all came from traditional media either in their legacy platforms or in new digital ones.
General interest newspapers like the Baltimore Sun produced half of these stories (48%) and another print medium, specialty newspapers focused on business and law, produced another 13%.
Local television stations and their websites accounted for about a third (28%) of the enterprise reporting on the major stories of the week; radio accounted for 7%, all from material posted on radio station websites. The remaining nine new media outlets accounted for just 4% of the enterprise reporting we encountered.
The next time you scroll through your daily or weekly rag, listen to talk radio, or catch the morning or evening TV broadcasts, pay attention to who says what. If Baltimore’s study is comparable to other metropolitan communities, the majority of the content you come across may be edited locally but has an external source (even if the source is not attributed).
Case in point: Tia Costello provides Census Bureau commentary for the Newburyport story on the same day she talks to the MetroWest Daily News — and two days after her quotation in Boston University’s student newspaper.
If the Newburyport story was truly newsworthy, then why am I seeing three similar stories from three different newspapers about three different demographics with the same person talking to each reporter? I grant you the push to return Census forms is attributable to current events, but how isn’t this piece of news recycled with changed names?
The Baltimore study indicates 62% of all locally-produced news is about the government.
Perhaps if our local media could focus less on spinning their own versions of government events and more on expanding that 1% of spontaneity, we might enjoy the media for the breath of fresh air it provides and stop asking questions when we already know the answer.
