AS SEEN ON TV
Sensual news
There is something absurd about news appreciation today.
Surf the news sites and check out the BREAKING NEWS and the MOST READ boxes and see distinct differences between what news media considers headlines and what readers deem important stories.
When BREAKING NEWS banners “2010 polls back to manual” the MOST READ section carries “Cebu inmates honor Michael Jackson with Thriller dance”. BREAKING NEWS says “RP slips into recession” is top story but MOST READ contradicts that with “Hayden Kho: drugs, sex, drugs, sex”.
News editors struggle daily with striking the balance between setting the news agenda with “Lakas-Kampi merger turns sour” and giving the public “Pacquiao throws lavish birthday bash for Dionisia”. The day’s most read story could be “Flu scare dries up holy water stoup” more than “Mancao now gov’t witness” which can still be overtaken by “Ruffa and John Lloyd ‘just friends’” if the Mancao piece is badly told.
It is incredulous to think that the public now considers “Video scandal provokes Senate inquiry” (affecting one insane doctor) more important than “NEDA reports minute GDP growth” which impacts everyone directly with dire consequences to those below poverty line (almost the entire country, really).
I don’t know if news consumers are just jaded by the endless political mudslinging on “Ping wants probe on Villar’s C5 project” or is it because there’s just too much violence in the news that they don’t want to see more of “Solon summons Fil-Am torture victim” anymore?
But all eyes were on “SOCO discovers Ruby Rose remains under the sea”. Isn’t that story physically and emotionally violent especially when “Ruby’s last conversation with daughter caught on tape” played out on TV?
Confusing intrigue for news is not uniquely Filipino.
CNN ran a 48 hour Michael Jackson news tribute when the “King of pop succumbed to a heart attack”. Anderson Cooper stepped aside for Larry King who interviewed hysterical celebs alongside unknowns. Never mind if somewhere in the Middle East “Ahmadinejad slams Obama for meddling in Iranian polls” (a major story which undermines US peace efforts with Arab nations) or if the president of Honduras gets flak for “Wanting to extend presidential term limits” (or is that in the Philippines too?).
There’s a widening gap between what people want and what media decides as a big story via editorial judgment. Selecting headlines is usually based on relevance, importance, and impact. Editorial judgment used to be consanguineous with public interest, which is not the case today.
Consumers want news more sensual.
For ours is a generation where visuals are weightier than substance, emotions more relevant than relevance, and a side bar moves from the side and becomes the bar itself!
Journalists are shedding off theory learned from school and habits from earlier years of practice. The Whos, Whats, Whens, Wheres, Whys, and Hows of news writing are traded off for Images, Action, Emotion, Sounds and earth-shaking Sound bites!
TV and the internet stand to benefit from the demand for sensual news because they are audio-visual. To keep up, Radio is conquering the internet or cable, while print is finding its own ways to attract eye balls.
Tabloids can run “Wife’ bobbitizes’ hubby with fork” and affix a totally unrelated picture of a smiling bold star as if gloating over the bloody neutering! Some respectable broadsheets also use “eye candy” reinforcement, like a blow up of “Boracay’s sunset” beside “Enrile asks PGMA to drop house bid”.
Journalists now write for the ear, shoot for the eye, and aim for the heart. And sometimes, it helps not to write anything at all. By not writing, we say more, because the best stories are told not by words but by powerful images and sounds.
We don’t annotate video with “Barrack Obama, America’s first black president wins a landslide victory in the hotly-contested US elections, breaking a centuries-old racial divide at the White House, blah blah blah”.
We shut up and let the man say for himself with all pride and fire that “CHANGE HAS COME”!
That’s one live, powerful (and sensual) one liner no amount of award-winning script writing can convey better.