Page 5 - January 2020 IIssue new year

The Spectrum of Death: Perspective on News Coverage

several thousand acres that
B erupt into deadly and de-
R structive forest fires.

O
W Think of our commutes

A and travel for work and
R business. Thousands
D and thousands of planes,

trains, buses and subways
U complete their journey

N each day successfully,
I though more often than
V desired subjecting the pas-

E Photo Courtesy of google.com sengers to annoying, but
R multiple locations. minor, inconveniences.

S Let’s start by examining Reporting though centers
I what about an incident Consider, for example, on those few journeys
T makes it newsworthy, trees. Lumber companies which do not reach their

Y what raises a story to the harvest, hopefully in an destination, through a

threshold warranting re- environmentally sound crash, or derailment, or
2 porting. way, millions of trees a need for emergency evac-
0 year -- nothing special, not uation.
2 To start, as a fairly obvi- often reported. However,

0 ous point, being newswor- when one of those harvest- What other key attribute

thy implies just that, being ed trees will serve as the elicits strong reporting?
new, sometimes absolutely centerpiece of the holiday Human poignancy. The
new, like a new discovery, display say in Washington upstanding cab driver who

but more often new, dif- DC’s Ellipse, that singular works tirelessly to return
ferent, unusual, referenced tree will, very likely, merit a priceless violin left in

against the normal course media attention. Thus, the taxi, such an incident
of events. The incident similarly, in terms of the draws news attention.
must rise above the im- tragic, reporting goes not The beauty of the Cherry

mense background of to the millions of acres of Blossoms, again in Wash-
innumerable events occur- forests where trees grow, ington, DC, and again to

ring normally, every day, uneventfully, a bit each use another example in-
multiple times a day, in day, but rather to those

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