Hostages of non-news.

• Author: Saltzman, Joe
• Position: WORDS IMAGES - Mass media's social responsibilities

PRETEND THAT YOU ARE an editor of a major news distribution agency such as a newspaper, television network, or cable news show. Your job is to exercise news judgment and decide what stories your readers or viewers must know to have a pretty good idea of the important issues of the day--the stories that influence and perhaps even change their lives economically, politically, socially, and physically. How much space or time do you give to the following items?

Radio personality Don Imus' racist and misogynistic comments about the Rutgers University women's basketball team. Who is the father of model Anna Nicole Smith's baby? Actor Paris Hilton's jail time for drunk driving. A NASA astronaut accused of trying to kidnap a romantic rival for a space shuttle pilot's affections. An enraged Alec Baldwin's threatening voice-mail message to his daughter. The Duke University lacrosse scandal. Virginia Tech killer Seung-Hui Cho's video manifesto. The day's casualties and events on the ground in the Iraqi War. The positions of declared candidates running for the presidency. The debate over the President's U.S. war policy with Iraq and the decision to extend deployments. The bombing of a cafeteria in Baghdad. The takeover of Congress by Democrats. The Supreme Court's decision on partial abortion. The controversy over U.S. immigration policy. The backlash concerning the firing of U.S. Federal attorneys.

If you emphasized the downfall of Imus, the saga of Anna Nicole Smith from death to funeral to paternity, the astronaut love triangle, the escapades of Paris Hilton, and Alec Baldwin's private phone messages, you hereby are sworn in as the producer of any popular cable or celebrity news program. If you played up those stories, then added the Duke University lacrosse scandal and endless coverage of the Virginia Tech killer's manifesto, you would make a pretty good TV news producer. If you put those stories on the back burner and emphasized the war in Iraq, the Supreme Court decision, Congress, the U.S. Justice Department, immigration, and the presidential candidates, then you have no business working for TV news or blogging on the worldwide Internet. You more likely are to be working as an editor on some newspaper struggling to grab your audience's attention away from the celebrity-driven electronic news of the day.

Do not fret if all you remember is the celebrity-driven news. That is what dominates most of the television news programs you watch--from the...