What makes a news story?

Readers want us to cover the big stories, but they love to read about mystery, sex, scandals and animals

It was already an international news sensation this week, and well on its way to becoming an international media event, I suspect.

How inconvenient, then, that a pod of killer whales escaped the clutches of encroaching sea ice in Hudson’s Bay Thursday before the world’s media had a chance to descend in unruly droves on the tiny Inuit village of Inukjuak.

Already the developing story had appeared in news reports as far away as France and Hawaii. And make no mistake, news directors everywhere were preparing to send reporters and camera crews to cover it. Perhaps some were already en route or on site.

The decision to spend vast sums of money accessing a remote area to cover a story of virtually no lasting significance or immediate import would have been easy.

After all, it’s the best kind of story: simple, visual, emotional. And any story about animals is, well, gold.

On thespec.com, it was one of the most popular stories for two days running.

Never mind there are bigger issues almost anywhere else on the globe. For that matter, there are bigger issues in Inukjuak, but all of that would have fallen by the wayside if the whales had not found safety.

Had the world press reached Inukjuak, they might have been made aware of such things as the Idle No More movement, or the many serious issues affecting the Inuit and others in the North, but they would have been ignored by most. Too complex. No animals.

That was not the case with the missing chef from Cambridge’s Langdon Hall, which made headlines across the country this week. Despite the fact that this particular person had “gone missing” in the past and police did not suspect foul play, his “disappearance” was deemed news by this organization and most others across Canada from Victoria, B.C. to Toronto.

Indeed, police closed the case without much comment when he was “found” outside the province Thursday.

I cannot say why the case received as much attention from media as it did. Perhaps it was because it was a “mystery” (but not much of one, I suggest) and people love those. Perhaps it was because he was a celebrity chef, and people increasingly love those, too. Perhaps it was simply news organizations giving readers, viewers and listeners what they wanted. The story, after all, was second only to the teacher ’s dispute in popularity at thespec.com Thursday.

Perhaps there were other factors at work. But it all says something interesting about the nature of news: People like news in easily digestible morsels.

It’s not that Canadians don’t want media to tackle the big issues. They do and we do. But I think it’s f air to say we can often predict which stories are going to be popular, and they often involve simple concepts, mysteries, sex, scandal and animals, preferably photogenic ones.

On the other hand, we often do not predict stories that “have legs” as they say in this business. Sometimes they are indeed complex.

Ultimately, we can only try, as usual, to offer readers some of both. And I hope that is reflected in today’s newspaper.