News must be more than sex and violence - Column

IT USED TO BE so easy to define what news was. The gruff, growling, white male city editors who dominated American journalism for most of this century knew what news was all about. It was a good story involving sex or violence, kids or dogs, the unusual or horrific: man bites dog, famous people killing each other, corruption in high places (if it didn't offend major advertisers or the newspaper publisher), bridges collapsing, heroes returning, popular politicians and ministers talking, the weather, sports, entertainment. Anything the boss says is news was news. News judgment, we were told in the movies, the novels, and in newspaper city rooms around the country, was something you either had or you didn't, was difficult to teach, and almost impossible to learn. Newshounds were born with a nose for news.

Most of this news was of the police-blotter variety. What wasn't news was poor people in trouble; the daily corrupt activities of politicians, merchants, and the other members of the good old boys' network; struggles of women and laborers to get justice; or any of the stories involving hyphenate-Americans that didn't involve crime or amusement.

The definition of news by the white male power structure in the early part of the century has hung on stubbornly. For most of the decades of this century, American journalism ignored the dispossessed, poor, and minorities. Until recent decades, news judgment didn't include the vast majority of Americans who didn't have money or special-interest groups representing them.

You can search pre-World War II newspapers until your hands are covered with ink and not find fair or complete coverage of the great social and economic struggles of the 20th century: from women's suffrage, to the great labor fights against injustice, to the struggle for equality for African-Americans, Asians, and Hispanics. Throughout the better part of this century, "Front Page"-like reporters and editors glamorized in plays, novels, and movies considered none of that news. In fact, most of the stories now considered to be the most important of the 20th century were ignored by newshounds more interested in sex, violence, scandal, and broad stereotypes of the rankest nature.

With the obvious exception of breaking news, only a handful of newspapers and magazines, read by an elite few, actually covered what historians would consider the major social issues affecting the American people. There was precious little so-called muckraking or investigative reporting that reflected major social and economic changes. An argument even could be made that the news judgment of the legendary editors and reporters of this century created a continuous blend of what we now call infotainment--a collection of news that was for the most part trivial and one-dimensional. Although the media today are much more politically correct in their coverage, many of the old stigmas and judgments die hard. The current definition of news, especially on television, is not much different from the first five decades of this century.

Sex, violence, scandal, weather, sports, entertainment--that pretty much sums up what you see every day on daily TV newscasts throughout the country. While newspapers seem a bit more concerned with national and international events that affect their readers, more often than not the story of the day is not the economy, health and welfare of the citizenry, or environment. Most of the time, the news of the day is concerned with trivia, the same kinds of stories that would make an old-fashioned, grumpy city editor drool: movie scandals (Woody and Mia), royalty scandals (Prince Charles and Princess Di), and political scandals (Clinton and Flowers). In recent years, there also have been the types of news events that would make a William Randolph Hearst or Joseph Pulitzer foam at the mouth: good old-fashioned military intervention in which US. troops fight for truth, justice, and the American way while the press plays cheerleader.

It isn't just that the old definitions die hard. The problem is that those running the media stumble over each other to cover the perceived story of the moment. From the 1900s to the 1990s, most members of the print and electronic media have decided to follow rather than lead. It's safer that way. Pack journalism is often the real villain, turning trivial news stories into national concerns through the sheer force of repetition and emphasis. It is not that stories about Woody and Mia, Prince Charles and Princess Di, and Clinton and Flowers aren't newsworthy--they are, but not to the exclusion of everything else.

Where is the same furious pack journalism when it comes to the ransacking of the environment and the destruction of individual species of life, the thrift and banking industry fiascos that are bankrupting the nation, the crisis in American health care, or the new face of the Cold War as Russia and its satellite nations grope toward a new alliance with one another and the West? These may not seem by the police reporter's definition to be juicy bits of news, but they are infinitely more important to each and every one of us.