The usual notion of big news is the unusual. Journalists are taught to look for “man bites dog” stories — the events that raise eyebrows and make us think, “Wow!”
News of the ordinary also makes the cut in media outlets, of course, but it’s not what sizzles, and it’s not apt to get onto front pages or prime-time broadcasts.
A simple rejoinder to the media status quo is that what we really need are more “dog bites man” and “dog bites woman” stories. For every spectacular event, there are many others — just as terrible or just as wonderful — that barely register on the media Richter scale because they’re happening all the time. What’s earthshaking in people’s lives is often barely visible to the hype-hungry media eye.
But journalism has the challenge of simultaneously tracking what’s usual and unusual. One complication is that important ongoing realities may occasionally receive a lot of attention as a result of media whim. A certain social ill might suddenly get a burst of national publicity because editors at the New York Times decided to make it a page-one news feature…
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