Where do you sit in the "important news" scale?

[innocent_lex]

Almost 100 people have been killed in Norway by at least one evil man (suspicions of more, but no clear facts as yet). The BBC News has gone with breaking news of Amy Winehouse's death. That's very sad, too. I wonder, though, what the balance of news will be now. 10 million people starving in Africa - pushed out of the news by 100 people dying in Norway - pushed out of the news by 1 woman.

The whole planet is one big tragedy at the moment, but sometimes the priorities of the news organisations seems particularly twisted.

Comments

[lachli.livejournal.com]

They go with what will interest the majority more, I think people are desensitised to Africa and it's situation because it seems to be never ending for them. Norway is very shocking, but we don't have much to do with Norway as a country so I suspect the interest will only last a day or so. Whereas with Amy the media will be able to milk it for some time, probably without realising that the majority will be uninterested beyond the initial facts. It's not as though it's a shock really, it was always just a question of time.

[innocent-lex.livejournal.com]

If Amy Winehouse is what interests the majority of this country more than the tragedies in Africa, Norway or elsewhere, we've got serious problems. I hope it's actually what the media *think* interests the country rather than a reflection of reality.

[dallista.livejournal.com]

But as you say, Amy W is breaking news. Starving Africans not, has been happening for months, and Norway over 24 hours. :-( important, though, yes

[innocent-lex.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately the Amy news has been discussed now for the better part of two hours even though there's no actual news beyond the one fact - so not actually breaking, more like taking over with a lot of people prattling on who don't know anything. I'm sure it'll go on like that for a while.

The thing about Africa, though, is that it's been going on for years, but it hasn't been reported in our news until recently. And even now it's being reported, it's not being given the scale it should. It's the equivalent of the whole population of Sweden starving - how is that not massive news?

We're back to Norway now on BBC. It's been a 75/20% split of Amy/Norway the last few hours, with other news taking up the last 5%.