What Matters to You?

One thing I wasn't taught in journalism school, but learned nonetheless, was how to decide whether a story had merit or not.

Upon hearing of any news or potential story idea I would ask myself, "How does this affect my life?"

If the news could have an affect on my life, it probably could have an affect on other peoples' lives, and I instantly considered it worth reporting about.

There are a lot of stories, however, which I can't see any value in covering. I ask myself how it will affect my life, and I can't see any way that it would. Often times those stories are like slowing down to stare at a traffic accident. It's not productive. You're not going to gain anything from it. It's just a curiousity and people can't help themselves but gawk.

I must say, though, that decisions by the media on what to cover stem directly from what people want to read or see. If more people were interested in hearing about a celebrity divorce rather than the growth of Democracy throughout the Arab world, than the news will give people what they want.

We had a lot of headlines this week that I'm still trying to figure out "how does this affect my life?"

The death of Michael Jackson? Doesn't affect my life. I don't need to hear about it.

The divorce of Jon and Kate from Jon and Kate Plus Eight? Doesn't affect my life. I don't need to hear about it.

The passing of TV pitchman Billy Mays. Doesn't affect my life. I'm not interested in it.

The passing of Farrah Fawcett. Well she did share her cancer experience, which had an impact on people. I was interested in this aspect of her regretful passing.

But all in all, I've just been swamped by news this week that I really just don't care about. It's all just curiousity, like slowing to take a look at that traffic accident (something else I don't do).

I would love to hear and read more about the debates going on in Washington to reform health care. It gets very complex. I heard one proposal was more than 1,000-pages. That would affect me. That would be something I just couldn't learn enough about. That could be important information.

But instead, I know more about Jon and Kate's impending divorce. Great.

I guess if I need to learn anything important I have to put my reporter's cap back on and go out and find it out for myself.