To be fair, "civil war breaking out somewhere in Africa" is news in the same way that the tide going out is news. If you're upset about how predictable it is to hear about a rapper's opinions, you should be more upset about coverage of a war going on in Africa.
> To be fair, "civil war breaking out somewhere in Africa" is news in the same way that the tide going out is news.
Remarkably complacent view, and undermined by the fact that other channels will report on this stuff, but not the BBC. The point is firstly that the signal to noise used to be far higher in the UK - I've been watching it for 40 years - I know what I'm talking about - and secondly that it's extremely unlikely I'm going to learn anything new from Stormzy's poorly informed opinions. And yet the latter is prioritised over the former.
> undermined by the fact that other channels will report on this stuff, but not the BBC.
If you think the willingness of a news organization to publish something depends on how newsworthy it is, I guess all I can do is respond by quoting the Daily Mail Song:
Pop stars take drugs
Teen boys wear hoods
Sports stars have sex
Bears shit in woods
But that's still English news. I guess I can quote something else:
> the more lurid, titillating, sensational, or nationalistic, the better. Even the distinguished Xinhua News Service is not immune from this sort of thing. I couldn't help but chuckle when the podcast host Scott Peters worried whether or not the American press corps' obsession with non-stories like Kim Kardashian and Bruce/Catelynn Jenner would give it [Xinhua] a strategic advantage in the contest to control global media narratives. My guess is Mr. Peters doesn't read Xinhua too often. If I had few dollars [for] every time Xinhua placed a photo collage like "Beautiful Female Soldiers From All Over the World," "Singer Valen Hsu Poses For Fashion Shots," "Sleeping Babies With Their Cutest Pets," on their front page...
Newsworthiness is something that can force news organizations to begrudgingly give up space they would rather have allocated to -- going back to the song -- their photo feature on schoolgirl skirt styles. If you're watching the news because you're hoping to learn something, you're making a blatant category error; that's not what the news is for.
And "civil war in Africa" fits tabloid desires perfectly; it's lurid and violent, drawing readers or watchers, without being at all surprising or important.
