If it bleeds…
As though the cyclone in Myanmar last week that has killed nearly 30,000 weren’t enough, another natural disaster lashed out today, this time in China, where the death toll from a magnitude-7.9 earthquake has already reached 10,000.
The news followed up a sad weekend story, in which about 25 people in the Midwest and South were killed by tornadoes and violent storms.
And who can forget the weeks-long saga regarding unrest in Tibet, which I’m sure has not vanished but has merely turned into an afterthought, regarded as passĂ© by finicky editors around the nation.
This is a snapshot of my work day, and these are the types of events that comprise it. I read story after story — violent crimes rising in cash-strapped cities, Shiite militias planting roadside bombs in Iraq, the number of home foreclosures hitting a record high — gauging whether one tragedy can top another enough to make it on the front page of a 15-by-22-inch newspaper.
In my industry that’s called “news judgment.”
Tags: china earthquake, editors, myanmar cyclone, news, newspapers, tibet, tragedy
May 14th, 2008 at 5:27 pm
i can hardly stand to pick up a paper these days - the news is just so depressing. I just hate seeing so many people that have been hurt or killed because of other people’s irresponsible actions - whether it’s constructing shoddy buildings, refusing to allow foreign aid workers in to desperately troubled areas to maintain control, or inciting wars for the wrong reasons.
May 15th, 2008 at 9:23 am
I have a hard time as an individual filtering this type of information. I can only imagine how you do it everyday, and then to have to choose what is more important or attention grabbing. I hate hearing such devastating news, my heart goes out to all of those lost and the ones mourning for them. It makes me treasure what I have and remember that any moment could be your last so make the best of it.