When “news” becomes a product delivered on a regular schedule, press releases and made-for-news events must become pretty attractive to journalists.
Today, most major American news websites are running something along the lines of “Lots of People Go Shopping” as their leading story.
 CNN screenshot #1 |
 CNN screenshot #2 |
 MSNBC screenshot |
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The CNN front-page story blurb reads:
Early bargain hunters packed stores across the nation this morning, but industry watchers say it remains to be seen if the buying momentum will hold going into the weekend. The day after Thanksgiving is one of the most important shopping days for U.S. retailers.
Is this news? Who decides to run a story like this? I understand that holiday shopping is a powerful economic driver in the U.S., but this is so hollow a “story” it feels like a vacation for journalists.
Note, as always, the “More News” stories on right side of the CNN.com screenshot are so absurd as to be hilarious. All of this on Buy Nothing Day.
May I suggest http://europe.cnn.com/ ? I remeber one of their ads comparing a French proper waiter to an American waiter/actor-wannabe and how that’s such a clever metaphor for the distinctions between the 2 editions. Europe’s edition is marginally better.
I’ll abstain from cruel jokes like suggesting Fox of GNN.tv 🙂
http://www.reuters.com/ is also pretty good… sort of a “news mothership”, if you will.
A lot of people work in shops, holiday shopping is an important thing for putting bread on the table, knowing that it’s going well is news.
In reply to Stephen’s comment:
To me, it seems disingenuous to celebrate holiday shopping just because it helps the shop workers. After all, how much do they really profit? And aren’t they also the ones buying so much?
It seems that the only ones coming out ahead in January are the shop owners and the producers of all the crap people are buying. 🙂
If those shop owners don’t come out ahead in January guess who gets fired? The employees. Things in the real world are outcome based and nobody ever got a job from another unemployed person. Sales enable businesses to keep people employed.
I didn’t buy anything today and I wasn’t even aware it was Buy Nothing Day. I don’t keep track, but I’d guess there’s at least one day a week when I don’t buy anything. Am I really that strange? Usually it’s a day when I’m too involved with some project or activity to go buy stuff. On PEI it would be fairly easy to go one day a week without buying due to the Sunday shopping laws.
Joel: Onward and upward. Except the workers are also the consumers and eventually it falls apart when all time is taken by work and consuming. In other words, “more sales” can not possibly be better to infinity. There’s a point somewhere that quality of life begins to decline.
Ian: would you consider it news if people stopped buying, and caused a depression? Would it be true then that the only stories that should be considered news worthy are the ones that are about human misery?
nathan: nothing is better taken to infinity, to drink water is essential for survival, drink too much and you’ll drown.
When I said depression, I meant recession. I got caught up in my own ‘the only news is bad news’ thing.
Many of us are so fed up with nothing in the news but Britney, UBL, Palestine, Iraq, and Arab world problems ad naseum, it is a great opportunity to change focus, if even for a short time. And it is so much better then filler about Fear Factor or Big Break II. I think many networks know this. And, the fact advertisers look at results from their ad dollars, and make future plans to spend ad dollars accordingly.
I too was disappointed by the lack of coverage of Buy Nothing Day, and you’re right to point out that most of the big media have been lazy in covering the story. In a media environment obsessed with “balance,” most publications have failed to even mention the other side of the story.
Stephen: just knowing that something is going well is not news — things that happen on a regular and predictable basis have no news value (i.e. these stories lack impact, conflict, and uniqueness). Thus, BND is news because of the conflict and potential impact inherent in the story; “stores sell lots of shit” is not news, because the same thing happens every year. The argument that people need to know because they have to put bread on the table doesn’t work — if you work in a store you *know* how well you did on any given day and whether you can keep putting bread on the table (you don’t have to turn to 6 o’clock news to find out).
> I understand that holiday shopping is a powerful economic
> driver in the U.S., but…
I think that you’re downplaying this just a bit. Given the state of the US economy over the last few years, I don’t think the first indications of holiday season performance is all that “hollow” a story.
While it’s true that a lot of journalists cover it as more a human interest story, there are very real ramifications here for US retailers, employees, and – in the longer term – the economy and country as a whole. Thus, this is of interest to me and all sorts of other people.
I agree that it was probably a poor decision to put this item above some of the others listed under “In Other News”, and I do agree that journalists tend to be pretty lazy a lot of the time … But I still think this sort of story has significant relevance and news-worthiness.
For me beyond the main point of the news/not news is the odd feeling that how interesting it is that in the last 200 years our economy has become founded solely on the consumer aspect. If we all stopped buying the world would collapse. It takes me quite a stretch to imagine that this has only been the case recently and
“… things that happen on a regular and predictable basis have no news value…”
In that case, can I have your word that I won’t hear anything about the next presidential election in the USA.
You do bring up a good example, Stephen. Yes, elections happen on a regular and predictable basis, but that’s not what makes them news worthy. Elections are news worthy because they’re ultimately about conflict. If election coverage would consist entirely of headlines like “People rush to vote,” I think we would both agree that’s lazy journalism.
But this is exactly what happened on Nov 26 — none of the stories had any depth aside from stating that “people rush to shop.” Consequently, none of the stories had news value either.
COLLAPSE! If I don’t have that new plasma screen TV, Collapse! APOCALYPSE! Go buy the new Britney Spears video or else we’re all going to die! Ambercromie & Fitch is selling redemption! Only $89.95. Can’t afford it??? May God have mercy on your soul.
All of you!
And the wise man mutters beneath his breath
…You’re already dead….
Buy Nothing Day was born to inspire intelligence in consumerism.
What do you really need? Who is it benefitting? Is what you’re buying really benefitting you and the individual (haha) selling it? Is it benefitting some CEO f*ck with a fat thumb?
When I shop, I buy things from an individual. I buy shoes that last. Not shoes that are supposed to change me into the model portraying them.
It is to ring a heavy blow to coporitization. To reinstate capitalism. (Yes, corportization is a threat to capitalism.)
Turns out that CNN did interview Kalle Lasn on Buy Nothing Day. I got the feeling that the interviewer was doing more than just playing devil’s advocate. Although she does help make his point about unawareness of the effects of consumerism.