As I found myself reading multiple articles on Fecal Microbiota Transplantation this month in several new sources, each a well-researched and in-depth piece, in print, it made me realize how much our news sources are contracting even as the amount of places to read things online continues to widen. It wasn't that there was anything wrong with reading multiple articles about this medical technique, just that having slogged through the intricacies of the colon once, return trips were not necessary.
The difference in what is reported versus what is actually happening has a lot to do these days with the shrinking news cycle combined with a shrinking news budget. One thing that the ongoing contraction of major newsrooms and major news bureaus means is that there are fewer people doing more work. Even more importantly, the time isn't available for a true discovery process. One of the reasons that Serial was so groundbreaking and so captivated the listening public was that people hadn't heard of the case before. It was all new and all news to most people. People tend to assume that news websites are gathering up all the news but increasingly it's less about breaking new stories and more about building on/augmenting existing coverage. Perhaps the success of Serial will change that a bit but when push comes to shove we are still looking at a world where we are chasing not just stories but attention.
A comparison can be made between the world of journalism and the world of filmmaking. As box-office returns have dropped there has been an increased reliance on the tried-and-true sequels and reboots rather than testing the waters with new stories and new characters. The money simply isn't there to support many films without a built-in audience. We still have our surprise sleepers but they are fewer and farther between. In journalism, we see some stories getting deep and comprehensive coverage and a flood of attention, while others are reported once and forgotten. The difference often isn't the merit of the story.
Much of this has to do with the increasing role that analytics, both historical and predictive, play in journalism. We can see not only who clicked, commented, shared, and read but with this data we can also make predictions about what people are most likely to respond to in the future. Often we use the response to a shorter story to decide whether or not deeper coverage is merited.
Other times it's more simple, PR firms pitch the same handful of stories over and over to multiple outlets and these stories are often connected to things that are already exist in the media. Each day's Help A Reporter Out is full of multiple reporters crowdsourcing the same types of stories, the ones, that like the ads they support, connect to basing human emotions and longings.
Some of the most meaningful and interesting stories however don't find their way to journalists through these methods. They come out of nowhere, from a random conversation, from curiosity, and from that commodity we all seem to lack lately, stillness.
The stories that change us often aren't the ones related to Google search terms or social media hashtags, they are not the ones that we might predict generate the clicks.
We can't always predict the sleeper hit or the viral story, but that's not the point. To view news that way is to look at it through a reversed mirror. I believe in, and teach, writing for audiences but there are times when I wonder if the better part of truth and valor, is to reteach people how to write for themselves, to think for themselves, to allow their intuition and vision to guide the way rather than trying to court the ever-shifting masses.