News is Boring

What the news outlets don't want you to know

News is boring the overwhelming majority of the time.

This is true and this is the most essential thing to know when trying to figure out how ridiculously far off the rails mainstream (and alternative) journalism has become.

Forget ideology for the purposes of this discussion. People blame it wrongly.

The problem is that news is primarily boring. Notice I did not say that news is not essential nor important. But, when accurately and fairly reported, it is rarely mind-blowing. Bombshells are extremely rare. The balance of our existence practically never exists in a news story.

But, watch the “news” today.

BREAKING!!! … BOMBSHELL REPORT … EXPLOSIVE DOCUMENTS REVEAL …

You see these daily, often multiple times per day.

As it turns out, what gets reported is neither breaking nor a bombshell.

How It Started

The romanticism with news reporting has existed for a long time, but was taken to the next level with the Washington Post’s Watergate reporting. The idea of disheveled reporters with a crumpled notepad and a pencil meeting in a dark parking garage with a CIA operative gets the adrenaline going.

Intriguing, isn’t it? An anonymous, shadowy figure has the goods on the White House administration and drops it, bit by bit, to two bulldog reporters.

It birthed a generation of wide-eyed, zealous college students who made a beeline for journalism so they, too, could change the world.

Then reality hit.

These wide-eyed kids wound up at entry-level newspapers around the country and were sent to the local city council meetings, where buttoned-down commissioners discussed weed ordinances, sewer rates and community branding. They were sent to the local United Way office to publicize the upcoming fundraising campaign. They were sent to the local library to inform the public about the summer reading program for children. They were sent to the local high school to do a feature on the student with the perfect ACT score.

Yes, these stories are interesting to the neighbors of the man with the high weeds in his yard and to those who don’t want to pay the extra $4 per month for a sewer rate increase. The non-profits who benefit from the United Way fundraisers are happy to see the coverage of the United Way fundraiser and the parents and extended family of the ACT student are excited about the big feature.

But imagine what these wide-eyed reporters think when they run to journalism for clandestine meetings with shadowy figures and wind up at the library for summer reading?

The above stories are essential journalism. But would you pay money for it if another entity in town claimed to blow the lid off something 13 times a day?

This didn’t matter too much back in the day when newspapers had monopolies on regional coverage and news was just a 30-minute broadcast locally at 5 and nationally at 5:30.

How It’s Going

But two things happened that changed everything.

First came cable television and 24-hour news. I hate to state the obvious, but you can’t retain viewers for long with boring news, no matter how fairly or accurately it is reported.

You better give the viewers something that keeps their interest – even if you have to “goose” the news a little.

Or a lot.

Then came the Internet. Now, newspapers weren’t the only voice in the community. If you had something to say from the comfort of your own living room, you could get it out to the people.

Blogging became a big thing. The most successful bloggers were the ones who yelled the loudest. Their blogs didn’t have to be backed up with any real substance. They just needed to have some sizzle.

Over the span of just a few years, the occurrence of “bombshell” news went from once every few months to several times a day.

Keep in mind, the news itself didn’t really change, but the manner in which it was reported changed drastically.

Published Examples

This was illustrated perfectly in 2018 when the Washington Post sent a reporter to Dothan to do a story on the local Jewish synagogue’s effort to re-seed the synagogue by offering cash payments to families who moved here and joined the synagogue. The Post talked to a handful of these families about their experiences here and those families offered glowing reflections about their time in Dothan.

Except one.

One couple recounted a few innocuous instances that, at best, rose to the level of residents’ ignorance about Jewish faith and customs. What was produced was a 2,641-word skewering of Dothan as anti-semitic.

Why?

Again, which headline would the public most likely click?

“Predominantly Christian southern Alabama town reaches out to Jewish community looking to grow”

Or

“A millionaire paid Jews to move to a small Alabama town. Now, a couple struggle with their choice.”

The Post’s story generated more than 3,600 comments.

Want another example? A tweet shared by the news site @Voxdotcom in 2016 had this menacing headline:

“More than half of children in one Alabama county test positive for lead poisoning”

Wow. And beneath the tweet is a bar chart that indicates Houston County has a 58.3 percent rate for lead poisoning cases in children.

At the time, Houston County had about 23,500 people that were children-age. The tweet leads the reader to believe Houston County had more than 12,000 kids with lead poisoning.

Patently false, of course. How many people were in the dataset Vox used? 12. How did they come up with 12? No one really knows. Of the 12, seven tested positive. Local officials believe the positive tests came from one family whose home had corroded pipes.

So the lead poisoning rate for Houston County was not 58.3 percent. It was .03 percent. And it had nothing to do with the quality of the drinking water, which was the peg of the story.

At the time, Vox had about 331,000 Twitter followers. The tweet was retweeted 94 times. I issued an explainer a couple of days later from my Dothan Eagle Twitter account, which went out to about 1,500 followers. It was retweeted twice.

No one wants to read the following stories, even though they accurately reflect the sentiment and truthfulness of the moment:

New Jewish families welcomed to South Alabama town.

South Alabama county has clean drinking water.

Television and alternative media soon learned that the louder you yelled and the more you scared the viewer or reader, the more people viewed your programming or clicked on your site. And guess what? The more people watched you or clicked on your site, the more money you made.

Some of the techniques being used in “news” reporting today are the same ones used by casinos to entice repeat gamblers and gaming companies to keep gamers engaged with their games.

There is an addictive quality to news reporting today, especially cable news.

And that’s how the rails came off the news.

The ability to report news in a “matter of fact” manner died, or at least suffered a mortal wound that has been bleeding for years and will soon lead to its complete death.

All of a sudden, your sewer rates aren’t increasing because the cost of maintaining the system has risen over time. Your sewer rates are increasing TO LINE THE POCKETS OF SHADY CONTRACTORS!!!

Which of the below headlines would the public most likely click?

“Unemployment rises .2 percent, in line with cyclical pattern over time.”

“SPIKE! UNEMPLOYMENT RISES AS XXXXX PARTY POLICIES BEGIN TO ERODE CITIZENS’ ABILITY TO MAKE A LIVING!!”

Humans are inherently drawn to the controversial and/or sensational. It is why we slow down and crane our necks to look at the traffic accident on the side of the road. It’s why “warning: offensive lyrics” labels increased album sales. And it is why more people read sensationalized news than accurately-reported news.

And the media (both mainstream and alternative) has found the formula to make tons of money. Scare readers. Make sure they believe they can’t do without your information because “they” may take away your liberties if you miss the next story. Make sure that you report no news that challenges the worldview of those most likely to read/watch you. Demonize the other side.

Most of what is reported as monumental or world-altering news is neither. It’s pretty much normal stuff. But that won’t make money.

And that’s why I began by asking you to put aside ideology. Your side reports the news in this manner just like the other side. Don Lemon and Tucker Carlson alike understand this paradigm completely.

What’s the answer? That’s the difficult question. It’s hard to take the money out of news once it has become so baked-in. I know of no other way, however.

Who do I Trust?

What news do I read? I read a little bit of everything, with emphasis on the word “little.” I trust the Wall Street Journal. That doesn’t mean I take everything reported there as gospel. I understand it is a conservative publication but it is not afraid to take conservatives to task from time to time.

I do not trust the New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox News, Newsmax and OAN. I believe those entities report truthful and worthwhile stories from time to time, but I believe too many who work there see the world through only one ideological lens and can’t report outside of it, regardless of where the story leads. If you watch or read any of these predominantly, you will get a skewed view of the world.

Things were far from perfect back in the old days. Some stuff that needed to be reported was pushed aside. Reporters still allowed their ideology to get in the way. But where we are now is not where we need to be.