Saturday, September 21, 2013

Media Critque

 
           "Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair's daughter held at gunpoint" was one of CNN's top world stories on Friday September 20, 2013. This story has absolutely no newsworthiness and is completely irrelevant to the rest of the world. First of all this happened in London, England, secondly it was an attempted robbery, thirdly there is no way a wide audience was affected by this, and lastly " no one was hurt and nothing was stolen" according to Rachel Grant a Blair spokeswoman; therefore having absolutely no newsworthiness as stated before because in order to have newsworthiness a story has to have a direct and lasting impact on a wide audience according to the newsworthiness  yardstick of journalism quality. If anything this should be a human interest piece, not a top world story. Plus Nick Thompson the CNN reporter that covered this story didn't know any major details like why the robbery happened or why the robber singled out the daughter. He basically published an unfinished story that not only gives incomplete information but also has the reader questioning the truthfulness to the story because the story didn't back up any of the information they found. The problem could be improved by having all the information before publishing it as a story; for instance why does this concern the world, not just the Blair family and anyone else who was directly involved or why it happened.

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