Morbid curiosity is now enough to elevate a story from the gutter to the level of “news.” Nolan’s justification boils down to the belief that people should have the video because they want it, a rationale echoed by Slate’s Farhad Manjoo on Twitter. “Posting stuff people are talking about is what [Buzzfeed] does. This is their job,” he said. But people sometimes want things they shouldn’t have, an obvious truth reflected in the mere existence of things like editors and editorial judgment and ethics classes in j-school. There’s a reason you don’t see pornography on news sites, despite the fact that Google search volume for “porn” eclipsed search volume for “news” sometime around June 2008. Though people want porn, editors don’t believe it’s the media’s place to give it to them. And when it comes to snuff videos, another form of entertainment, most media outlets make the same choice.
The Kicker
05:25 PM - October 1, 2012
Mayhem porn
Coverage of the suicide aired on Fox News highlights the media’s treatment of death as entertainment
#Realtalk: This isn’t another ‘golden age’ for print - But it is one for media
Social media in smaller markets - How three social media managers deal with smaller markets and more local coverage.
A rally for laid-off Sun-Times photogs - A protest Thursday morning drew about 150 picketers to the newspaper’s headquarters
Reporting, or illegal hacking - Scripps reporters are accused of violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act
Exchange Watch: California Dreaming - Low healthcare premiums on the West Coast were trumpeted as a big, good-news Obamacare story. But: “Compared to what?”
The disappearance of ‘Sports of the Times’
We’re the Uber of organ transplants
“Millennials need organ transplants that fit easily into their always-connected lifestyles”
‘What part of “Politico” do you not understand?’
A conversation about the dark art of driving the conversation
Julian Assange’s asylum stalemate no nearer resolution one year on
The Ecuadorean embassy’s celebrity refugee is used to living in what Assange likens to a space station as he battles extradition
CJR’s panel discussion on coverage of gay marriage
On the eve of two related SCOTUS decisions, how should journalists be covering the issue?
CJR's Guide to Online News Startups
Uptown Messenger – Hyperlocal news for a neighborhood in New Orleans
Who Owns What
The Business of Digital Journalism
A report from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
Questions and exercises for journalism students.
--ethics classes in j-school [:]
They must have classes in anchor deportment, or otherwise they would be doing it on the newsdesk.
"Blood Meridian" (Modern Library) by Cormac McCarthy is violent. Far more than FOX News Death.
This piece barely raises my interest. A consenting adult made a pact with a gun to step off into eternity. That was his business
A Fox goof who has nothing better to do than watch car chases? He is an original idiot. Maybe that tells us something about Ripart Marduck.
#1 Posted by Clayton Burns, CJR on Mon 1 Oct 2012 at 06:12 PM
"But people sometimes want things they shouldn’t have, an obvious truth reflected in the mere existence of things like editors and editorial judgment and ethics classes in j-school."
But those editors usually decide that people shouldn't have an honest account of the daily crimes committed by the central govt and its many cartels (to which corporate news-media belong). Hmm. I wonder why mainstream "news" outlets are dying off.
#2 Posted by Dan A., CJR on Tue 2 Oct 2012 at 01:41 AM
Thank you for this thoughtful, poignant piece. I hope people stop confusing shock value with news value.
#3 Posted by Danielle C., CJR on Tue 2 Oct 2012 at 02:53 AM