Media Coverage of Stories That May Seem Important to You
may be less than you expect, and probably will not be at the top of the news on broadcast TV network, nor appear on the front page of whatever newspaper you read. That's especially true right after whatever occurred happened.
However, if you search Google News for keywords related to the story, you'll see that your story is and has been covered, by the next day, if it is truly of national interest. Not on the front page, necessarily, nor as the lead story on every news broadcast. But major stories get covered.
We have high expectations for news coverage, it seems. If a story happens anywhere in the world that interests us, we're likely to hear about it, because we follow news in that area. It's easy to assume that every story each of us thinks is important is equally important to others, or should be.
That's just not the case, really. If the story is reported locally, it can take a day or two to hit the national news media outlets. If a story happens in some other country, well, US news media reports mainly on stories of broad national interest in the US. So, those stories lead the news. The stories that affect us all.
The other stories get covered inside the publication or on one national news broadcast on the network TV news outlets. One broadcast is the norm. If you didn't watch that broadcast or read the entire newspaper, you might not think it was covered at all.
Time is limited. Space in publications is limited. What gets covered is based on viewer or reader interest in general. Other stories get mentioned or reported inside the publication if they are not of immediate national concern or interest.
It's almost never true that a particular story you want spread wasn't covered by the media. A day after the event, a Google News search will demonstrate that it was covered by national news broadcasts and other media that covers major news stories. However, if a story is primarily of local interest, it may not get a lot of coverage, and you might actually miss that coverage.
Use Google News or another news aggregation source when a story happens. When you do, you'll see who covered it and can visit the links to get more information and more details. Sometimes those links lead to local media near where the news occurred. We have access to all the world's media now. We need to use it.
Broader coverage takes time to happen, in all but the most crucial stories. Posting on DU to the effect that "nobody's covering" whatever story you think important is almost always untrue, which is proven by searching Google News. You may not have seen the coverage. It may not be as extensive as you think it should be, but full coverage is available if you want to read or watch it.
Every news outlet has limited space, time and people to cover stories. Often news services are the source for stories that are not covered by a news outlet's own staff. Google is our friend when it comes to stories that may not hit the top of the news or get covered immediately.
Thanks. That's my opinion.