Democratizing the news

Elizabeth Edwards, I hope you are feeling well. I am happy to note it has been a year since you graciously responded to my blog about your husband's decision to continue his campaign for the presidency, and what that decision meant to him, and to you, in your marriage and your illness. A year from now, by the rules in the breast cancer world, you will be a survivor.

I liked your commentary in today's New York Times. I was outright tickled by your phrase-making. The "Cliff Notes of News" describes very nicely the coverage consumers get when the media cuts so many corners in its presidential campaign coverage, and "strobe-light journalism" is an inspired reference to news stories "in which the outlines are accurate enough but we cannot really see the whole picture."

And you were right, that "if voters want a vibrant, vigorous press, apparently we will have to demand it." Demand it of whom? You suggest "talking calmly, repeatedly, constantly in the ears of those in whom we have entrusted this enormous responsibility."

I assume you mean newsmen, editors, media professionals who make decisions about coverage. If I may, permit me to offer an example of how that works. In September, 2006, my home town paper, the San Diego Union-Tribune (where I was a newsman for 20 years), stripped across the top of its Letters page a series of letters whining about some of the U-T’s recent choices for front-page stories.

One griped about a huge front-page photo of San Diego Padres pitcher Trevor Hoffman, the morning after he broke the all-time major league record for saves. Another letter thought the front page should be reserved for international, national or statewide content. A third wondered about showing a photo of local teachers on the front page, where the news of the day should be.

Such reader annoyance with editorial decisions is an eternal, fascinating irony. The values and realities that editors use to make their decisions are there for all to see, right there in the page. But readers can't see them, because American schools don't teach students how to see them. The long-term result is a media illiteracy rate of about 90 percent among Americans, but that's another story.

Those values and realities are nothing more than categorization and measurement of the way people react to events, and those reactions began tens of thousands of years before the media came into being. In fact the media came into being simply by adopting those values and turning them into a business.

These values, with some definitions and realities became a "media code," that today is at the heart of all media news, entertainment and manipulation. In the code are 12 media values, each with a strength measured on a scale of zero to 10. Every value is present in every story in the paper, each on its strength of zero to 10.

When a media professional, in this case an editor, looks at a photo of Trevor Hoffman on the front page of The San Diego Union-Tribune the day after he sets a new Major League record, he or she sees novelty (10), proximity (10), prominence (10), and sensationalism (7 or 8). Timeliness (7) and human interest (about a 6) are there, too, but the others are the big four behind the Trevor photo.

Novelty is the news value invoked by the unusual, the rare (Snow In San Diego! Clinton jumps to GOP!). Setting a record in major league baseball, "America's pastime," is an unusual event. People still talk about Hank Aaron breaking Babe Ruth’s home run record in 1974, and they were talking again in 2007 about Barry Bonds breaking Aaron's record. Setting a record for saves hadn’t been done for decades, until Trevor Hoffman achieved it in 2006. Novelty insured that the feat was noted in newspapers all over the country, even three paragraphs in The New York Times.

The proximity value means the story happened close to you, either physically or emotionally. Hoffman pitches for the Padres, the home-town team. San Diegans are physically close to stories about the home-town team. If Hoffman pitched for far-away Cleveland, or even Los Angeles, the story would have been three paragraphs on an inside sports page.

Emotional proximity is just that: the story is close to your emotions. Winning releases strong feel-good emotions; we all want to win, and millions of Americans get a vicarious charge from watching their team win, and, in San Diego, watching Trevor Hoffman become the best relief pitcher ever.

Prominence is simple: big names make news. Trevor Hoffman is a celebrity, who achieved a novel feat, in his home town. And sensationalism, in its legitimate sense, refers to an event that is sensational. Barack Obama's March speech on race relations was sensational and will be long remembered.

Even if they knew the code, and were able to see its presence in the page, more people than not would gripe about the front-page content selection. Why? Because of demographics. Every reader, within their demographic groups of readers, from highbrow to sports fan, has his or her own list of stories they want to see, based on personal interest. It forces editors to democratize the choices: on any given day, which demographic represents the largest number of readers likely to react to this story?

On that day, it was Trevor Hoffman. The "largest number of readers," in the editor's estimation, may have been only 20 percent of all readers, inviting 80 percent to gripe. But because of another code phenomenon, dealing with the power of small numbers, the 20 percent was enough. In fact, a 20 percent response is enough to make an editor, or any media producer for that matter, weep with gratitude. Twenty percent will sell advertisers.

That's how a newsman would respond, if you talked into his or her ear calmly, repeatedly, constantly, about better coverage in this presidential campaign. The news is a business. That is the first law of media, which drives the democratization of story choices. Audience first, stories second. There's the ears you need to talk into. To change the media, change the audience. Then let them vote at the Nielsen booth.