If it bleeds, it leads
I CAME across an interesting article in The Gold Report on the IBT Commodities website Wednesday and was struck by the similarities being played out in the media here.
The article noted that one of the first things mainstream journalists in Western media learn is how to tease angles out of stories that play on fear, scandal and disaster.
“Good news is no news. Bad news sells. If it bleeds, it leads”, the writer noted.
That’s what many in the media have come to accept.
When I was Editor-in-Chief at the Guyana Chronicle, I had a newspaper cartoon on the wall in my office of a news vendor standing next to a large and a small stack of newspapers. A sign over the huge pile of newspapers read `Good News’. Another over a much smaller stack said `Bad News’. The message was clear – bad news sells.
It was my daily reminder of what is required in a highly competitive media world where rival newspapers and media outlets battle for a bigger share of the market place.
Those running these media outlets are driven by the need to sell more and more of their product and their recipe for success is what sells best.
That’s the mantra; that’s the very first commandment. Don’t for one moment believe those running so-called popular newspapers and other media who every now and then beat their breasts and gnash their teeth to proclaim that they are among the anointed few appointed by God to be guardians of the public good.
Don’t take just my word.
Rookie journalists are often told by older, wiser journalists, “Dog bites man is not news; man bites dog is news”. It’s all about the unusual; the more scandalous, the better.
The Gold Report article referred to the observation by historian, political writer and Guardian columnist Timothy Garton Ash — “Many Chinese City Dwellers Moderately Content with Rising Standard of Living” isn’t a headline that would sell a lot of papers.
In the same article, Resource Opportunities Editor and Publisher Lawrence Roulston notes that the media “has a huge bias toward the negative side of any story”.
Investors focusing on scary headlines, he argues, are missing out on phenomenal opportunities developing on the other side of the world – namely Asia and, particularly, China.
His advice? “Take a broader, longer-term view of the world.”
It’s that broader, longer-term view that’s sadly missing in much of Guyana’s media world and coverage.
And so it is that the opening of a new bridge or road or stelling and what this may mean to thousands of ordinary people does not make headlines.
But a crack in the bridge, a pothole in the road, or a bent beam on a wharf is swiftly blown out of all proportions to create sensation, stir fears and sell newspapers.
Bad news sells; if it bleeds, it leads. Play on fear, scandal and disaster to sell and make more and more money.
Good news does not have to be boring propaganda. It’s all about getting the right angles, doing the right stuff to produce and package material to make it attractive to readers and viewers.
Most people do not want to be daily mired in gloom and doom; but they also shy away from sycophantic reporting that does nobody any good.
The world does not need docile, pussy-cat media genuflecting to those currently occupying the corridors of power. The media have a right to be watchdogs for society but that’s only part of the much, much bigger job.
Guyana and other countries battling to preserve their relatively new-found democracy would be better served by media that are not fawning and that are more grounded in ensuring adherence to truth, openness, transparency, accountability, fair play and other basic tenets of democracy.
These are among the blessings that came with the restoration of democracy at the historic October 5, 1992 elections and strenous efforts have to be made to ensure they are not eroded.
And it can be done. It’s all in the way the story is told.