Comments on: What’s News?

By: Is this newsworthy? « Communicating With

Is this newsworthy? « Communicating With — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 13:35:55 +0000

[...] pop culture, Social Media | In a recent post Heather Whaling on the prTini blog asked “What’s News?“ Since I started writing for the local newspaper over a decade ago, this has been a question [...]

By: tjpip

tjpip — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 11:39:50 +0000

Heather,

Thanks for the post. It really helped me to focus in on a topic that has interested me for a while.

In the world of social media, it's always important to ask what's newsworthy.

Formore of my take on this topic, please check out my post “Is this newsworthy?” here: http://communicatingwith.wordpress.com/2009/09/...

By: Kim

Kim — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 17:33:28 +0000

Heather, the lines have most definitely blurred. We talk about this every day at work, but now I've found myself permanently wired to respond “Is that really news?” when I hear a story that seems out of place.

For instance, and while I realize the “Today” show isn't real, hard-hitting news all the time, they do seem to reserve the first hour or so of programming to news. But, this morning I was struck by the “news” story they made out of Michael Jackson's daughter getting a hair cut. Somehow, some way, tying it back to DNA made it newsworthy. All the while, I was shuddering at the ridiculousness of it all.

This is a particularly difficult conundrum for professional communicators, which is only made worse by the fact that online “news” is driven by SEO and ad sales rather than compelling content.