They say news is a matter of opinion (I am beginning to think 'they say' is an overused term to gloss over the fact that there really isn't any concrete information), news is basically any event or action that has or will take place. What people consider news is very dependent on the person, for example some people may be interested in the latest sports score, others may want up to date financial news from the movers and shakers in the business world, and still others may only be interested in what their grandchildren have been doing.
In our modern society the importance of news is decided by a few factors:
1) to what extent will it impact the audience of the news
2) interest of the audience in certain news
3) standard or limitations to publishing news
Of course I'm oversimplifying it a tad but bear with me, now more often that not news in factor 1 is not of interest to people while factor 2 isn't really important to the lives of the audience beyond the superficial.
Now as well a lot of news in that is interpreted to make it as appealing to the audience as possible - or as it is more commonly known "sensationalising" news stories for popularity. It doesn't just fall into the realm of entertainment news, the major 'trusted' news networks are just as bad. The 'venerable' CNN in the USA has been considered the most 'fair and balanced' news channel by the general public. Unfortunately that is a poor standard, let's give a quick example, there recently was a story about North Korea, take a look at the headline from Reuters and compare it to the CNN headline for the same story (they link to the stories which I recommend reading).
Reuters - North Korea seeks talks with South but warns on sanction
CNN - North Korea: Sanctions a declaration of war
It gets worse if you do read the actual stories that were online, the CNN story makes no mention of the talks with South Korea but instead focuses on the threat North Korea and their missile program represent.
If you break down the story, only the first paragraph is actually news, the rest of the article is opinion and history provided to give a certain impression. All too often I see this type of reporting where the actual content can be summed up in a few lines while the rest is speculation and propoganda disguised as factual information.
It isn't really CNN's fault though... if you had a choice between the two headlines which would you click on?
News providers are tied to sponsorship and viewer count, they walk a fine line between journalistic integrity and meeting the bottom line. The sad truth is that no news source can really be trusted, if one wants a real picture of what is happening in the world you must take as many different perspectives as possible and the truth will fall somewhere in the middle of that.
Though how many people have the time for that anymore? Many don't even bother reading from one source of news, forget checking different and altering view points of news. It isn't necessarily a bad thing, until these same people decide the must have an opinion about the world or (heaven forbid) get actual power and decide to make policies based on incomplete and often faulty information.
What is even more frightening is people who have strong convictions based on absolutely no information at all... I won't say which group many of such people belong to, but I'm sure many can hazard a guess.
Though perhaps as with beauty, the value of news is just in the eye of the beholder... and how news will effect the way they think and act.
Hmm, perhaps it is all meaningless information that is consumed and passed out like ... ugh I can't finish that analogy.
I guess more important than having information is what one does with it, if someone has a perfect view of everthing going on in the world but just goes about their daily life... how is it different than someone who doesn't know anything about the world? So perhaps one has to take information with a view of how to change the world or at the very least share their view with others.
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