Editorial Discretion
In the late 20th century, most people would select newspapers based on their political preferences or religious beliefs, only a small percentage, namely the (y)UPs would select a publication based on the merit they would get out of reading it.
While this percentage has increased quite a bit in recent years, it is still evident that people don’t like to break with old traditions and would rather read a newspaper that feeds them information that is deemed fit by their particular “group” rather than a newspaper that reports just because there should be reports.
If you take a look at Middle Eastern countries, you’ll see that just about every journal, gazette and in general, 98% of the publications are tainted by religious beliefs. The reasoning for this is simple: If you control what the masses believe, you control what they do.
Yes, information in today’s world is still worth it’s weight in gold and with the right information you’ll still be able to wield power over someone.
However, with everything that can be abused for personal gain, there are also some things you can do that will eventually result in something good happening (or something bad not happening).
A week ago, in a tragedy that caused a huge ripple effect in the Dutch media unfolded. A father, of reasons unknown to me, first disposed off his mother-in-law and then threw his children in front of a train.
Many newspapers, especially the ones aimed at the lower working class, described the whole event in great detail. One newspaper however decided that they’d rather not fuel the fear and hate of their readers.
De Volkskrant opted to publish an interview with an expert in the field of suicide prevention and suicide research. Said expert conducted a study about the effect of articles that discuss tragic events, like the one listed above, have on the society at large. His conclusion: the more you read about suicide and murder, the more likely you are to become victim to one of those events yourself.
His statement, of course, needs to be put into proper context: if you are a perfectly sane person, you will probably not experience any side effects, other than a feeling of sadness that will quickly subside. On the other hand, if you are a person suffering from depression and have already tried to mutilate yourself, you are a lot more likely to be affected by news reports about this kind of events.
All in all, I believe that these two publications made the right choice by not describing, in vivid detail, how the events unfolded exactly but rather only mentioning it “by the way”.
Sure, if you don’t see something, doesn’t have to mean that it isn’t there, but I’d rather not open my newspaper every day to be greeted with, yet another, firsthand account of someone killing his next of kin.