News that Makes Money: Top Five Guidelines

With most people getting their news fix from sources like television and the internet, the opportunities for news stations to make more money from advertising keep increasing. In order to keep viewers interested, news stations are moving away from hard news-news that involves actual political policy-to soft news, which is based mainly around crime and human interest stories. Today, most featured news stories have to meet the following criteria:

Violence - People are more likely to remember the most violent or horrific events they see on television. News stations know this, and that's why top stories of nightly news broadcasts are often violent in nature-murders, drive-bys, etc. News stations are playing on the emotions of their viewers. If the viewers are emotionally involved in a story, they will be more likely to watch that night's broadcast, and more likely to come back the next night.

Internal Affairs - The United States is consumed with an interest in ourselves. While other countries feature important news from all over the globe, the majority of news on US television programs involve the US, and the US only. The American people want to know what's going on close to home, and what's going on with Americans overseas. The emphasis our society puts on individualism leads to a disinterest in anything outside the spheres of our everyday lives.

Focus on Personality - News stations like to focus on specific personalities. Much of the news is beginning to look more and more like a soap opera, only instead of sexy adulteresses with steamy affairs, leaders like Tony Blair and George W. Bush take center stage. Oftentimes the real issues get overlooked in the face of personal scandals. One of the top headlines of the moment? Newt Gingrich's statement that bilingual education encourages 'ghetto talk'. What does this have to do with real policy? Absolutely nothing.

Events, not Ideas - Broadcasters like to focus on events more than ideas or policy changes because events give news viewers action and excitement. Abstract ideas such as new bills just aren't entertaining enough for today's audiences. Which would you rather watch, COPS or C-SPAN? Unfortunately, for most people, the answer is COPS. This isn't to say events aren't important, or that we all need to watch politicians verbally duke it out on television every day, but attention does need to be paid to important Congressional decisions, and how they affect us. A similar problem is happening with other aspects of media: simply put, people would rather see the movie than read the book.

Short - News programs like to adhere to the KISS guidelines-Keep It Simple and Short. The average news story needs to be complete in a time frame of around two minutes, or viewers may get bored. The problem with this is that more often than not, a story is compressed into ideas that are much more simple than what the incident actually is. The news is dumbed-down in a manner that takes away complex issues that may be essential to the story. As a result, news viewers get a severely skewed account of what may have actually happened.

When watching the news, it's extremely important to remember that news programs are a business like any other. Getting your news from a variety of sources can help ensure you're getting the full picture of what's going on in our country and around the world. Real issues may be overlooked in the quest to hook new audiences and make more advertising dollars.