Not What You Want To Read But Rather What You Need To Know

A Newspaper

Since I heard Dan Rather speak last Tuesday at the St. Louis Speaker Series, I've been thinking daily about his answer to one of the questions he was asked (and I paraphrase): "How would you define what the News should be?"

He gave a good answer, which has been bugging me, because this ideal is sadly very far from the News we are typically getting these days. "The News", he said more or less, "should be what you NEED to know to be a well informed citizen."  In other words, the News should be informative, educational, elucidating, uncovering.

Take recent events: how many times do we need to know that no debris have been sighted for Malaysian  flight 370, especially when those non-sightings coincide with a particularly high risk Eastern European theater of events?

This discrepancy between press reports and important to know data is illustrated brilliantly in an opinion piece by Princeton neuroscientist Sam Wong where he compares side by side the press time given to various autism risk factors, some putative. Most significant risk factors have gotten limited press time, whereas vaccinations (not a risk factor) have dominated the competition.

So try the "do I need to know this" lense when you read your morning paper. What I've started thinking more clearly in the last week is "what about this do I actually need to know?" or "what would this piece need to tell me to be informative?"  It's a good lense.

Till Later,

Anne