IRRELEVANT JOURNALISM
There's a thin line between journalism and sensationalism that's becoming increasingly blurred in the age of social media. Consider this recent headline: “Jennifer Hudson's brother arrested for allegedly stabbing a man”. The fact that Jennifer Hudson is a celebrity seems to be the selling point of this news story, however irrelevant it may be to the actual case. It appears as though news sources nowadays insist on playing six degrees of separation when it comes to reporting a story.
In a way, this is understandable. The fickle nature of the public means newspapers have to keep on their toes to maintain our interest. There is no space for mundane facts nowadays because sooner or later self-control will give way to curiosity as people start looking for more information. Generally a story about a man attacking another man will not garner much importance until it is revealed that the victim was related to a celebrity who, coincidentally, has a film coming out soon. It's a phenomenon that tabloids have capitalized on. When readers have had their fill of the facts surrounding a story, they turn to sources that can give them conversation fodder.
Press guidelines state that unless it's genuinely relevant to the story, there is no need to mention race, religion, sexual orientation or any disabilities the people involved may have. However, this is far from the case when you see headlines that reveal the aforementioned details which are not essential to the telling of the story. “Man commits crime” and “black/Muslim/gay man commits crime” have different effects on readers and spark different levels of interest. Unnecessary details sidetrack the reader from the crux of the article because usually things like who the subject is related to, how much their house costs and how many times they've been married offer no real substance to the story.
Irrelevance goes hand in hand with insensitivity, another trait attributed to journalists. To many people, the concept of doorstepping is on a par with harassment and intrusion of privacy. The idea of reporters going to people's houses uninvited for information, especially if it's the house of someone recently deceased, may seem like repulsive behaviour, but is it a means to an end? Despite being a practice that is frowned upon, doorstepping allows reporters to obtain crucial information that would give them an edge over rival newspapers. There's a reason that people in the news industry are referred to as vultures, and it's not an affectionate term. In a way, tabloid journalism has spoiled us. If broadsheet newspapers are your five-a-day portions of fruit and vegetables, tabloids are the antithesis; full of additives and artificial colourings. You know it's bad for you but you still crave junk food.
When Bangladeshi singer Nazmun Munir Nancy was admitted into hospital following a failed suicide attempt, it was revealed that some papers had approached her and her family to find out why she had done it, with some websites even publishing photos. Speculations arose about problems in her marriage, but those were soon quashed by relatives. She is in the public eye, so people are bound to be intrigued. They'll want to know how and why she did it, and her family will have to deal with answering these questions at a time when they should be given privacy.
Are stories like this in the public interest? Probably not. It's not beneficial to us in any way. It has the potential to do more harm than good because as a general rule, a newspaper's coverage of a suicide should not contain too much detail as there is a chance it could cause someone to act in a similar way. However, is it something the public find interesting? Unfortunately, yes. Morbid fascination means we can't help but crane our necks both literally and figuratively. As long as we still have this curiosity within us, journalists will continue to ask the difficult questions - questions we ourselves cannot ask.
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