News judgement

News or editorial judgement is perhaps trickier than many editors would admit. The two words are used interchangeably and they mean the same thing. Each time an editor decides to publish or not to publish a story, he delivers an editorial judgment. The placement of stories and the weight he attaches to them are all products of his news/editorial judgment.

An editor’s news judgement is influenced, arguably, by one important consideration: the public good, aka public interest. It is a nebulous term and like national interest, there are no hard and fast rules on how one arrives at it. Take note that the editor of a soft sell publication who publishes a salacious story of purely prurient interest can also argue that his decision to publish is in the public interest.

The idea is that whatever story an editor publishes in his newspaper is deemed to serve the best interests of the public. He publishes to build, not to destroy; to unite, not disunite. Or, so we think. Sadly, an editor is only human. It follows that he is not always right about this. A libel suit or the arrest of an editor and his reporter by the police on the orders of the higher up, should convince us that an editor does not enjoy the luxury of infallibility. The doctor’s mistake is buried but the editor’s brings him face to face with the law.

What are those things that help the editor judge a story suitable for publication in his newspaper? They are two, namely, facts/ accuracy and fairness. An editor is not in the business of selling lies; or he should not be. His facts in a story must properly check out. The story itself must be fair to all those concerned. Fairness also assumes that an editor has no personal or pecuniary interest in the story and that his judgment on its use is both informed and professional.

In attaching weight to a story, an editor is influenced by the nature of the story. The nature of a story throws up two things, namely death/tragedy/natural disaster and personality. In a less imperfect world, the weight of a story, in order of importance, would be death/tragedy/natural disaster and personality. The reason is simple: death or tragedy or natural disaster affects a particular community. The nature of death gives weight to it. Mass shooting comes to mind as a good example of this. Tragedy may be personal or communal. Natural disaster, such as an earthquake, landslide, typhoon, etc., is communal too and because of the number of lives lost and property destroyed, it must rate right at the top of an editor’s priorities.

Personality has to do with the important people in the community. Because of who they are and their importance in the society, they are themselves the news. It is not, therefore, difficult to see why government-owned television and radio stations in Nigeria rate personality above the general good. Each news bulletin begins with what the president does or says on a particular day. He is followed by his ministers and other top government officials perhaps defending the government itself.

At the state level, the governor comes first followed by his commissioners. In all cases, stories of death/tragedy/natural disaster stories are poorly weighted and poorly treated. Unless, of course, the important personality says something about or visits the scene of death or tragedy or natural disaster.

This is an inverted traditional weight assigned to stories. But as they say, he who pays the piper dictates the tune.

Sometimes without any help from the oga at the top, an editor goofs by unnecessarily playing up a personality story. Here is a case in point. The Lagos edition of the Daily Trust of April 11, 2017 carried this front page lead banner headline: “Patience Jonathan withdraws cash from unblocked account.”

Why did the editor think it merited a front page lead? I would imagine his reasoning went like this: The former first lady is a very important personality. Her turning up at the bank to withdraw money should be of interest to his readers. After all, when was the last time you saw a former first lady at the bank withdrawing money in cash?

But her presence at the bank alone was not a big story. For one, she did not attempt to withdraw money from her blocked account; therefore, she did not attempt to commit a crime. For another, according to the story she “waited for hours” to be attended to. She did not try to push anyone around asserting herself as our immediate former first lady. She, in my view, behaved with decorum.

I think it is always a mistake to think that whatever an important personality does or does not do merits a front page lead. Sure, we cannot ignore important people but we give them undue importance when our sense of news judgment is a sentimental reaction to their importance. In this case, the newspaper wanted to show, as the lorry owner knew long ago before him, that no condition is permanent.