2004/08/08
On News
"Contrary to the images on the eleven o'clock news, which to a large extent are a function of a definition of "news" that has at its centre elements of the dramatic and atypical....
You'll never hear on the news that for 99 percent of the population in any metropolitan region on any given day everything was every bit as ordinary as it always is or that the large, large majority of the buildings did not fall down. That's not really what's demanded of the news, but the danger is that somehow the atypical and unusual comes to be treated as if it were the everyday and ordinary, and as a result, people cut themselves off from a good deal of possibly rewarding experience."
Stephen Friedman, "City Moves", 1989.
You'll never hear on the news that for 99 percent of the population in any metropolitan region on any given day everything was every bit as ordinary as it always is or that the large, large majority of the buildings did not fall down. That's not really what's demanded of the news, but the danger is that somehow the atypical and unusual comes to be treated as if it were the everyday and ordinary, and as a result, people cut themselves off from a good deal of possibly rewarding experience."
Stephen Friedman, "City Moves", 1989.
# posted by Justin @ 03:07 
