News: Wants vs. Needs

In my journalism class, we recently took a poll based on news organizations. The poll question stated:

Should news organizations give its audience what it wants to know OR what it needs to know?

Before I answered this question, I took the time to think about current news organizations and how some are more biased toward political, economic, and pop-cultural news over others. During this instance I thought about large-scale global events that have taken place in the past 5-6 years and how those were portrayed on one news organizations compared to another news organization. Of course there is the bias conservative/liberal agenda presented on each organizations reports of current events. But whether or not this information is needed or wanted is a whole other topic to be discussed.

Should news organizations give its audience what it wants to know?
This question is not easily answered. Many people enjoy variations of news stories instead of  stories related in only specific areas of interests. For instance, women are more interested in learning about news that relate to their beauty and fashion needs. If you pay attention to morning news stations like “Good Morning America” or “The Today Show” there are sections that are for advertisements of certain products or dinner ideas for the house chefs of today. This is a want in news reporting. These topics are soft news stories in the fact that they are of human interest and not necessarily of human necessity.

Should news organizations give its audience what it needs to know?
People, whether they like it or not, need to know about medical advances, new policies, economic turns, and global issues. This is hard news.  These stories are rapidly evolving and changing every second of every minute. They are the first things reported on every news station and the first headline that we read when we open a newspaper. Although the earlier example of morning news shows reports of personal interests, the headlines are constantly rolling across the bottom of the screen.

Thus, in my opinion, it is most important that news organizations report what its audience needs to know. This is the first rule of good journalist writing anyway and all too often the hard news is suppressed by soft news. Even with the importance of getting what we need to know from our news organizations, the stories are spun to portray particular issues in particular ways so it is vital to be open-minded about news and opinions that are reported. Luckily, most of my classmates seemed to agree with this choice.

 

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