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The news is a business. As such, it must sell a product. What is the product being sold by all commercial news outlets and what impact does this have on news content?

  • The revenue stream of a commercial news outlet is the sale of advertising space and/or subscriptions. Generally speaking, both are a product of popularity. A popular magazine or program can demand a steeper price for its advertisements, and a popular paper or cable channel will have more paid subscribers. We can generalize from this that good business for a news outlet is whatever attracts eyeballs. Of course, there's more to it than this, for the same reason that grocery stores sell more than cotton candy. News sources have reputations: high-brow, low-brow, tabloid, celebrity, sports, family-friendly, brief, wordy, politically correct, pandering, liberal, conservative, well-researched, reactionary, superficial, muck-raking, local, national, world, etc. Like any business, they have to find and develop a niche. That's where things get interesting.   I am willing to bet that a majority of reporters and editors working in the free world have some notion of journalistic integrity and reverence for the Truth with a capital "t". There are few utter mercenaries in the fourth estate, but there are also few superheroes. Between those two extremes are all the incentives and limitations of the business model. However virtuous you are, your boss may not be. First, having worked inside a non-profit newspaper, I can tell you that several of the perceived flaws in the news have nothing to do with commercialism, but are built into the job. For example, you're on a deadline so you have to stretch content and turn down leads. The details supporting your article are too long, so you have to cut content. You know that a source has an agenda, so you make a judgement call of which statements to take at face value. You discover after publishing that a source was misinformed. None of these are the news outlet's fault, per se. An experienced team can minimize some, but they will happen. Pile up a few and you can guess how far away the reporting strays from the Truth. And even that's assuming the news team is skilled. Remember Hanlon's razor. As for the commercialism, I'm sure there are cases, perhaps many, where the news is simply "bought". A memo comes down from the parent company to be gentle about a product recall because the parent company also owns the factory. I have no way of knowing how common this is, and I suppose that's really the big question, isn't it? I hear Rupert Murdoch is fond of that method. I've also heard of a similar problem of collusion all the time among video game reviewers. Huge developers like Activision buy ad space and expect positive reviews for their games. That's why much of the games journalism community is seen as aggressively positive. On the political side, I'm sure there's a distortion far more common than money changing hands, and that's the currency of access - writing sympathetically to keep getting interviews. Step on too many toes with too little clout and you'll be shut stories.  That's not even getting into the other side of the coin, which is the habit of simply catering to your audience. If there are subscribers to be won by flattering to a certain demographic, you might be tempted do that, regardless of how it aides some interest group. As your paper gains a reputation, it becomes more and more costly to get out of that niche, and the cycle continues.

  • Answer:

    In addition to the products advertised which surround commercial news segments, it looks to me as if a 'product' is being sold about which most of us are unaware. The real product sold by commercial news outlets is the diversion of your attention and mine from the governance of our society, our government, our communities, our people, our country. We are so busy being overwhelmed and entertained by 'the news' that we do not leave our monitors long enough to organize, assemble, and insist on our rights as a people who have consented to be governed by law. We as citizens are sold a media product -- news, entertainment, the whole Time Warner Cable package which includes internet, satellite dish, etc. -- and by focusing us on blinking monitors bringing us the news, we are unfocused on perfecting our Union. I'd say we're on the crummy end of the deal. It's a head fake. We think we're consuming news, but our civil rights are being consumed instead, because our rights must be insisted upon to be maintained: we have, instead, looked the other way for more than 50 years (since the advent of television). And it's time we look again at what it means to be a Citizen, to perfect our Union, and to focus our attention at people we elect to a  government which best serves its citizens.

Nan Waldman at Quora Visit the source

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It used to be that they sold education. For the last few decades however, all they have sold is entertainment.

Jeff Kesselman

For news outlets (and for Facebook, for that matter) we often think that we are the customer of CNN, CBC, the "Times", whatever. We are not. We are the product, to be sold to advertisers. The provider mines the product by capturing our attention span, then sells that aggregate attention on the market. Different purchaser desire to target a different demographic - organic rice cakes manufacturers compared to manufacturers of AR-15s, so different "eyeball-collectors" spin the news differently, so as to maximize their value to their customers.

R. Eric Sawyer

I would say that the product the news is selling is information. The media wants to sell us information it thinks we want to have or should have. The information can be credible, invalid, lies, or truth. That is why it is important to consider the source of the information and what media organization is reporting it. The negitive part of this is that the truth may be stretched or abandoned. Since it's about making money, sometime profit incourages reporters to use bad information. Ideally, it's good business to present truthful information and many news organizations probably intend to be honest. However, it is likely that some cut corners to make a profit or present a political agenda.

Scott David Brown

Well, the answer has two dimensions: what the news outlets should sell, and what they actually sell (well, most of them anyway). What the news outlets should sell is reality. By reality, I mean to say the actual day-to-day happenings going on around, without any bias, judgement on their part or whatever. That is the actual product of the news outlets; that is why they are existent. However, the above seldom happens. Which brings us to the second dimension: what is actually sold out there. The actual product of the news outlets is: perspective. Yes, the news agencies sell you perspectives. They give you a way to look at things, they way they want you to. Why, and how, these perspectives come into effect, are explained here in most answers, but let me give a short list anyway. 1. Political groups which the agencies have affiliation to, or who pay for the promotion of their perspective. 2. Commercial entities, who influence the economies of such news agencies are interested in promoting their perspectives about their own products. 3. TRPs matter for any television agency, or readership for print media. Hence they juice up the incidents according to popular perspectives to increase sales or approval. That is the final product of the news agencies. Thanks for the A2A.

Prasun Paul

Sensation. I haven't looked it up, but about 35 years ago, the guy running The Wide World of Sports took over ABC news. He was absolutely explicit about wanting to deliver images and words that would provoke emotion in the viewer. No idea of journalistic integrity survives in the MSM news, or, for that matter, cable. There are a few web journalists, and the WSJ and NYT both continue to employ journalists. I admire the WSJ opeds and cultural coverage more than anything else these days. But, the network news is a dead issue. They have closed most of their foreign bureaus, and if you read the NYT and the WSJ, you will soon discover that most tv news is just illustrated condensations of yesterday's paper. Also, with the rise of journalism schools and the general infiltration of the postmodern critique into all areas of academia and media, most of your journalists today are dedicated to influencing public opinion toward right thinking, as opposed to seeking after objective truth.

Hugh Brennan

News is no longer a business. Ratings continue to deteriorate and yet MSNBC still exists (with 200,000 daily viewers). All news organizations but a very few lose money annually. News today is a hobby of rich partisans. I wonder if they get a tax break for losing money on a hobby (hint, they do). When each and every news organization is owned 100% by stockholders and is on a stock exchange, then I will believe "news is a business".

Ed Bradford

News stations and papers are supported by sponsor advertisements.  It used to be pretty common to hear the anchor man say, "Will be right back after this word from our sponsors." The larger the broadcast audience the bigger the sponsors they can attract. News Papers of course would run ads in print same principle different media and usually a different audience. Advertisers usually pay close attention to the demographics the media is reaching. Conservative, liberal, young, old all play apart in the sponsors that news media attract and so the News is often tailored to attract and hold its niche demographic.

Mark Hamric

Drama.  It must attract attention, so the news looks for the lowest common denominator, which is drama.  News content is packaged to stimulate emotional response, but not like that of a great writer.  Its just drama, and they seek out more and more of it.  It message wants to be "the world is corrupt, people are corrupt, s*** happens, and here is even more s***.  Its video, which is especially drama inducing compared to newspaper writing. The shining exception is sports reporting, on the very same newscast.  Its a delight. Half the time the home team wins, and when they lose, its reported in the spirit of good sportsmanship. If a ref botches a play that will get reported accurately without demonizing the ref.   Sometimes the home team stinks and gets blown out - that will be reported as it is.  Other times the home team will win in  a route, and that is covered without too much gloating.  The players thoughts  are qouted  as they are coached to say - but its consistent with top grade sports psychology. "The past is history and my focus is on the next game."  Of course there is drama built into the game, but everyone knows its just a game.

Hank Smith

well if you have the time to watch this video, all your doubts will be cleared

Bheemeshwar Svs

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