🚀 go-pugleaf

jmc@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (John McCarthy) writes:

>   erics@sco.COM (eric smith) writes...

>   >I think the only importance newspapers place on stories is
>   >how many papers they will sell.

>   It's more complicated than this. When a newspaper has a steady and
>   loyal audience, the editors have the freedom to pursue a second-order
>   agenda beyond just bringing in more readers. The exact nature of
>   the this agenda will depend on the paper's audience. For the
>   Times, it might be imparting historical awareness. For a
>   tabloid, it might be combatting racism. The second-order agenda,
>   I suspect, is what attracts most journalists to the profession,
>   and makes the print media, at least, the center of missionary
>   activity in our society, rather than religious institutions.

>In the case of the New York Times, the editors of different parts of
>the paper are allowed to pursue their own ideological agendas to
>a considerable extent.  The editor of the Tuesday science section has
>a very strong green agenda and isn't anywhere near so interested
>in the physical sciences.

The subject of discussion was page one stories, in particular Princess
Diana vs. the relief effort in Somalia. I don't think that historical
awareness, combatting racism, contemporary missionary activity, green
agendas, or physical sciences have anything to do with the topic that
was being discussed. The Diana and Somalia stories are the same ones
that are on most magazine covers and newspaper front pages this week,
and in each case the prime motive is sales. You want to intellectualize
it to show that you understand the subtle turnings of American journalism,
but sometimes it's really just more simple than that.

-----
Eric Smith
erics@sco.com
erics@infoserv.com
CI$: 70262,3610