Newsworthiness

THE FIRST UNSETTLING BRAVE New Reporter story I heard, when I went back to the Washington Post newsroom to see what I ought to be teaching journalism students these days, involved a cell phone, a video clip, multiple deadlines and a mouth full of dental gauze. The dental gauze turned out to be embellishment, but not by much; the story was told to me by Tracy Grant, managing editor for the Post's...

This spring, when much of the national news media had become all Elián, all the time, their audience was very familiar. Fully 61 percent of the core audience for the Elián González story were the same dedicated viewers, readers, and listeners who followed news of the plane crash last July that killed John F. Kennedy Jr. The links don't stop there. No less than 73 percent of those drawn to news...