Extract from Chapter 2 ISBN: 978-84-475-3119-6.
McClurg (film director) was the first person to assert that the importance of news increased in inverse proportion to the distance between the receptor and the event being reported. This is known as McClurg’s principle but if we bear in mind the world distribution of information we should talk about McClurg’s Paradox and this would read, “the importance of a news item increases in inverse proportion to the distance between the event and the United States of America.” A frog race in Ohio is more interesting than a Guinness record in Rome, to avoid having to say, and this pains me, that a dead rich man is more interesting than a hundred dead poor people. Look at this in relation to the diagram of the pyramid “Who Deserves most Media Attention?”
Many people believe that it what happens in their country is “provincial” and what happens in America is “fashionable”. Add to this the availability of images (the big agencies for audiovisual material are based in the Emglish speaking world) and this means that it is cheap and easy to get the frogs on the news and so the public get used to accepting that what happens in the USA is news, the land where dreams come true. The disproportion is obvious, the richer a country is (but not the more cultivated) the less interest events in other countries have for its population.
But there are other effects:
The “Hamelin” Effect
Television follows the newspapers. The bigger the headlines the more minutes the bosses want to dedicate to the story. The importance and order of the news items comes to us as determined by the newspapers. The television bosses have little confidence in their own criteria and don’t dare not to broadcast what is in the papers, whether the topic is televisual or not. What is more, when in doubt most bosses will obey what the papers say rather than the journalist criteria. Every country has its undisputed newspaper “bible” but it is more and more frequently obvious that the papers also march to the beat of another drum: that of official sources.
The “Cyclists Pack” Effect
Journalists suffer from a particular form of a universal phenomenon that we can call “enter the chorus singing and dancing”, this involves everyone doing the same thing at the same time. At least this means that nobody gets it wrong, or better said, it means we’ll all get it wrong together. This is a product of the virus of mediocrity and a lack of criteria and personality to defend an independent personal viewpoint of journalism. One expression of this is the irresistible power that press conferences hold over section editors. The television doesn’t go because it is an intrinsically televisual subject, but it goes to avoid anyone asking the middle manager, “Why aren’t we covering this?” The result is increasing uniformity, the frameworks of different news programmes are identical, you can channel surf between all the channels without noticing the difference; they are all doing the same thing simultaneously. What is more, the excerpts of interviews are the same. The journalists on the scene agree on the information so that they don’t contradict each other. The plurality of information now consists of transmitting the same message on various channels and not of having diverse points of view.
The “World Day” Effect
This adds to the lack of originality, the institutionalization – and thus the neutralization – of anything unpleasant for society. AIDS shocked us in the first instance, it made us reflect on sexual relations, homosexuality and solidarity; now it is sufficient to wear a red ribbon for one day a year. The same thing happens with the “Working Woman” or the “Third World”, one day a year talking about them is enough. There are more world days than days in the year, in fact, each news desk could have and editor exclusively dedicated to the innocuous world days. Curiously though, although the date is known a year in advance, the news item pertaining to today’s world day is improvised and is treated much the same way in all the media.
The “Solomon” Effect
This consists of sharing the time strictly between political parties and institutions while never forgetting the maxim “he who pays the piper calls the tune”. The split made will never take into account the effect of the event in question on the members of society but rather on the screen quota owed to each party on public -funded television. The worst thing you could do is not to broadcast the declarations of a politician interviewed. It doesn’t matter if he didn’t say anything of any interest or that he said it badly. It must be shown or he’ll accuse you of boycott and call the management.
The “Saturation” Effect
All of a sudden a burning question disappears from the news (just look at the cases of Ruanda or Somalia for example). Somebody has decided that it is not longer important because the public have got tired of it and you hear no more of it. It is worn out, old-hat and nobody talks about it, as if people could be last season’s fashion. Eventually, much like the River Guadiana, (a desert river)
which appears and disappears, the topic can pop up intermittently but it is more likely that it will end up lost in memory and especially so if it is about the third world.
The “Skating” Effect
This consists of gliding over the top of things without ever going deeper. Research is not only expensive but it can bring up uncomfortable truths. Topics are chosen so nobody can accuse us of hushing them up but without us having to dig into them.
There are some especially problematic topics which are easy to cover up but if they do need some coverage then things will go badly. One of the characteristics of journalism is that three phases of the process are never explained: posing the question, crux of the problem and the outcome. Following a topic through time and watching how things evolve or comparing what somebody says now with what they said before is no longer in fashion. Providing a historical memory is seen as stirring up old disputes, why should we delve into the past?
The “Lectern” Effect
Press conferences where you can’t ask questions are getting more and more common. The journalists’ only mission there is to point the microphone. In a conflict situation the press have no rights to be on the front line “for your own safety” (in fact not even on the front at all). You are to work solely on the images and declarations (but not interviews) handed out.
Antidotes to these effects
For McClurg; local pride, because local can also be global. For “Hamelin” a maxim; what is good for the newspaper is not necessarily good for the television. For the “Cyclists’ pack”; look for your own distinctive information. For the “World Day”, remember that every day is good for talking about things that affect us. For “Saturation” think about whether what we convert into news will affect the lives of people. For “Skating”; research, consistency and historical memory and for the “Lectern”, just use journalism.
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