I’d appreciate thoughts about something that impresses me as an increasing trend in news reporting.
A news story will have a headline, say, “COVID IMPACTING MIDDLE CLASS.” I’m interested in seeing how it defines the middle class, what special challenges they are facing, what can be done about it, etc.
In nearly every case, the article will start of saying, “Suzy Smith just got off a 12 hr shift at the gas station, and is driving home to her special needs child…” And then it goes on and on about this person, their choices, etc. I don’t wish Suzy Smith any harm, but I really don’t give a shit about her, and I have limited tolerance for fighting through column inches of this sob-story crap, to get at the information that I consider news.
Yeah, I know the solution is to quit taking my local paper, and seek out some more objective, efficient sources of information. But has anyone else observed this as an increasing trend? What is the purpose? Do the editors think this somehow makes the information more personal or something?
Isn’t this pretty much the definition of “burying the lead”? And this isn’t just COVID stories. But it is especially striking, when I’ll realize I’ve made it through 10 pages of nothing other than COVID stories, and I’ve really learned nothing beyond the headlines.
And don’t even get me started at the disappearance of graphs and maps… :mad:
Yeah, it’s meant to “humanize” the situation and make it more “relevant” to the average person, under the assumption that most people lead similar lives. Tfui!
I think the goal is to turn reporting into contract labor. Buying an selling stories by the piece. You do all the human interest stuff on spec and they buy it if they feel like it. That’s how a lot of the local news is working. I’m sure the newspapers want to get in on the act.
The internet will give you that. If you still take a local paper it’s probably because you want a little local flavor with your facts and news. Take the same information coming over the wire that everyone gets, add local flavor, strip all of the budget for actual reporting, and you get the local paper.
This local paper is the Chicago Trib, and their reportage is often shared among their many papers.
I always find it distracting, because they invariably point out something that reduces my sympathy for the featured person - smoker complaining of poverty, unwed parent of many, etc. And I often end up giving up on a story, before I get to the “meat” (if, in fact, there is any.)
UK experience - these days you almost can’t find a TV news story which doesn’t relate Suzy Smith’s experiences, interview her, tug at your heartstrings on her behalf etc. I have basically stopped watching TV news, because it just makes me want to scream abuse at the set.
This isn’t just a “local news” thing. Journalism in general has been turning more toward “telling personal stories to illustrate the news” as younger readers/viewers have turned away from traditional facts/numbers reporting as being irrelevant to their needs.
It’s been 15 years since Bob Edwards was pushed out of NPR’s Morning Edition because management thought he was too stodgy. Now the trend is for program segments that resemble podcasts, each featuring its own reporter/producer/writer interviewing their own Suzy Smith.
This is a frequent complaint people have about online recipes, too, only it’s always first person.
“Growing up in suburbs of Tallahasee, we didn get much exposure to carrot sticks. You see my mother had recently become a devout believer in Celertology which doesn’t tolerate carrots in the household. In fact, stick-shaped vegetables were all banned so as to avoid angering Celeryman, their diety. It wasn’t until I went to college that I had my first taste of ranch dressing. I remember the day well. Rain was in the forecast and…” and it goes on for five paragraphs.
It’s lede. I don’t normally nitpick but I only learned it is lede relatively recently myself.
Local television news is just as bad, if not worse.
I don’t need children’s drawings during the weather segment, photos of pets, cooking demonstrations, thinly veiled advertisements pretending to be news, etc.
I subscribed to the Chicago Tribune for years, and this style of reporting always bugged me. Usually it was easy to spot because there would be an artsy photo accompanying the story, with Suzy staring sadly into the middle distance.
I don’t mind when a reporter interviews various people and includes a few illustrative quotes in the story. But making the whole story about the travails of one person, when there’s nothing notable or unusual about that person’s situation, strikes me as lazy and manipulative.
Yes, if they were reporting on the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, they’d start with Suzy, who had just landed a job at the Ford Theater earlier in the week.
In high school newspaper class, our teacher stressed putting the most important stuff first. That way, if the person stopped reading after a few sentences they could still get the gist of what happened.
Lede is common these days but the correct usage is not unambiguous. The word has been used in the “introductory paragraph” sense since 1912, and the original spelling was “lead”. It was only in the 1970s that the “lede” spelling started to appear. Some speculate that the reason was to avoid confusion with the homograph “lead” (as in the metal), since users of Linotype machines would frequently use both words, although Linotype machines were disappearing right about the time that the new spelling appeared. But even today the “lead” spelling is still used and is not considered incorrect by any dictionary I’ve consulted.
I’m trying to think of ways the 2 types of “lead” would be confused. If one were talking about typesetting, it would seem clear that one was not discussing the main point of an article. And I don’t know why anyone would think Pb was being buried in an article.