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.