Sunday, March 7, 2010

We Need More George Seldeses in the World

After studying some of George Seldes in History of Mass Media and now Indy Media, it has become more and more clear to me that journalism needs more people like Seldes.

Every morning before I go to class, I watch CNN as I'm getting ready for about an hour. The stories that pass as news on CNN at times honestly astounds me. Just the other day, I watched as a story about an elderly woman crashing into a DMV during her road test was repeated twice in an hour. While it was an entertaining story, it had no news relevance to anyone outside of that town. No one was hurt. It led to no social chance. It was simply sadly funny and ironic. Why isn't CNN covering things that are more socially relevant? The sad answer to that is obviously viewer ship. Fluff stories that are funny attract more viewers. Also, fluff stories are often easier and faster to produce. Honestly, I think the work is worth it to spread news that has importance to the world.

Maybe news outlets should listen more to Seldes' many different words of wisdom... one of my favorites being that "uphill battles were intrinsic to doing good journalistic work."

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