Life is not worth living.
It’s no big revelation that our news media like to make themselves the topic of the news (does anyone know how Katie Curic is doing these days?). But I wonder if you share my observation that along the way, they seem to have lost the ability to actually tell us what the news is.
This morning there was a major explosion at the Falk Corporation. As I left my home to drive to work, I could only get quick glances of the story on the TV, so I turned on the radio to find out what was going on.
I won’t name the particular station I was listening to but suffice to say they make their bones on news. For 15 minutes, I heard callers talking about the force of the explosion, reporters talking about their on-site locations being moved further away and about every ambulance in town being commandeered. I also heard various statements about propane tanks, some “170,000” pounds and others “10,000” gallons all with the implication that more explosions could happen soon.
At 9:00 am, the “top of the hour” newscast came on and I thought I’d finally hear what my college journalism professor told me a news report was supposed to do and that is to report the facts. “Who, what, when, where and why,” was what he asked for.
No such luck.
More stories about where the reporters were being moved, more call-ins about the force of the blast. By now I knew the “who,” and “where” which was the Falk Corporation in the Menomonee River Valley, but nothing any more particular than that in terms of which structure it might have been. As for “what,” well, duh, it was an explosion. Nothing factual about why. And no “when.”
What I really wanted to hear was for the station to tell me what happened. And if they didn’t know certain facts at this point, to please state that. I don’t care where their reporters are being moved. And while, yes, I’d love to hear from the guy whose chair “rolled about three inches” when the blast occurred, I’d rather start by knowing some of the facts.
My partner, Tom Thiede, tells the story of his college journalism professor who tried to teach this to his students by climbing up on his desk (which he asked the students to believe was a 23-story building), shouting, “Life is not worth living!” and jumping to the floor. He then asked the students to write the story.
The students responded with various versions of love gone awry, building design, grisly effects and such. But the teacher pointed out that all they knew in terms of facts was that a man made a statement and jumped from a building at such-and-such a time.
Those elusive facts.
Ah, but there’s more. Just before entering the office, I stopped for coffee and a roll at my usual place, the Broadway Bistro. The nice young lady asked me if I had heard about the blast. “Sure,” I said. But then I asked her, “What do you know about it?”
She gave me the who, what, where and although she didn’t know the why, she did know the when. In other words, in twenty seconds, I got a better report from the lady who serves me coffee than I did from the local radio station in twenty minutes.
So of course, I said, “where did you learn all that?”
“Oh, the Internet,” she replied, “We have it on in the back.”
This morning there was a major explosion at the Falk Corporation. As I left my home to drive to work, I could only get quick glances of the story on the TV, so I turned on the radio to find out what was going on.
I won’t name the particular station I was listening to but suffice to say they make their bones on news. For 15 minutes, I heard callers talking about the force of the explosion, reporters talking about their on-site locations being moved further away and about every ambulance in town being commandeered. I also heard various statements about propane tanks, some “170,000” pounds and others “10,000” gallons all with the implication that more explosions could happen soon.
At 9:00 am, the “top of the hour” newscast came on and I thought I’d finally hear what my college journalism professor told me a news report was supposed to do and that is to report the facts. “Who, what, when, where and why,” was what he asked for.
No such luck.
More stories about where the reporters were being moved, more call-ins about the force of the blast. By now I knew the “who,” and “where” which was the Falk Corporation in the Menomonee River Valley, but nothing any more particular than that in terms of which structure it might have been. As for “what,” well, duh, it was an explosion. Nothing factual about why. And no “when.”
What I really wanted to hear was for the station to tell me what happened. And if they didn’t know certain facts at this point, to please state that. I don’t care where their reporters are being moved. And while, yes, I’d love to hear from the guy whose chair “rolled about three inches” when the blast occurred, I’d rather start by knowing some of the facts.
My partner, Tom Thiede, tells the story of his college journalism professor who tried to teach this to his students by climbing up on his desk (which he asked the students to believe was a 23-story building), shouting, “Life is not worth living!” and jumping to the floor. He then asked the students to write the story.
The students responded with various versions of love gone awry, building design, grisly effects and such. But the teacher pointed out that all they knew in terms of facts was that a man made a statement and jumped from a building at such-and-such a time.
Those elusive facts.
Ah, but there’s more. Just before entering the office, I stopped for coffee and a roll at my usual place, the Broadway Bistro. The nice young lady asked me if I had heard about the blast. “Sure,” I said. But then I asked her, “What do you know about it?”
She gave me the who, what, where and although she didn’t know the why, she did know the when. In other words, in twenty seconds, I got a better report from the lady who serves me coffee than I did from the local radio station in twenty minutes.
So of course, I said, “where did you learn all that?”
“Oh, the Internet,” she replied, “We have it on in the back.”
posted by Bob Welke at 12/06/2006 09:19:00 AM
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