Is the “Good News” News?—Part 1

EXCERPT:
Last week the Catholic media--both print and electronic--were filled with complaints about the mainstream media’s coverage of World Youth Day 2011, which had just finished in Madrid.

At first blush the complaints were obvious. Upwards of 1.5 million youth from around the globe converged on Madrid for worship, networking, song, sacrament and celebration, inspiration and general mass gathering. Brutal heat and drenching rains could not dampen the excitement, enthusiasm, and powerful witness these youth gave to their faith. Even Pope Benedict XVI endured a lengthy soaking to show his solidarity with them as he presided and announced that World Youth Day 2013 would be held in Rio.

Yet the mainstream media covered the event minimally, and most of the coverage that was there focused, not on the event itself, but on the various protests that accompanied it…

Small surprise that Catholic media outlets responded negatively, ranging from disappointment to outrage…

Such reactions are natural and well-intentioned, but on another level they reflect serious confusion about the journalistic nature of media coverage. When Bishop Chaput rightly recommends turning to Catholic media for better coverage, he confirms the obvious fact that their purpose and function is to focus on church events. Consequently they offer better coverage of such events. But does it follow that inferior coverage by the secular media betrays “a set of fairly rigid ideological assumptions and imperatives”?

Perhaps not.

I’m reminded of the three years I spent as executive editor of a Catholic (diocesan) newspaper in the late 1980s. Like most such editors, I faced chronic negativism from pastors who wanted the paper to focus on their upcoming parish events, and thereby boost turnout. In short, they expected the paper to serve a promotional and public relations function. As journalists, however, my staff and I saw things differently.

True, our coverage always focused on church matters, because we were church paper, but we still needed to set priorities--and our priority always went to the items we judged to be most “newsworthy.” Even for a Catholic newspaper, “news” is the name of the game. And my job was to persuade pastors and readers that we knew the rules of that game.

NEXT TIME: What makes events “newsworthy”?