The good newspaper editor is almost by definition schizophrenic. He wants to produce a journal which is well-balanced, tries to report both the good and the bad of what is happening, editorialises judiciously, even-handedly dispenses blame and praise, and reflects the cultural best as well as the lower depths of the nation which it serves. Another part of him wants to attract popular attention, sell more newspapers, appeal to the gut feelings of the man on the Kitty mini-bus and the love of sensation in all of us.
Who can blame the poor editor when his judicious self is roughly pushed aside by his circulation hungry alter ego? For the professional journalist there can be nothing more galling than the realisation that his paper may be considered too anodyne, too high-brow, too dull and therefore runs an increasing risk of going unread. And there can be nothing more satisfying than evidence of people clamouring for his product and circulation zooming.
In all of this the basic newspaper fact of life is that people much prefer reading about bad news, sensational events, mayhem, disaster and scandal than they do about assiduous good behaviour, quiet achievement and happy outcomes. It is regrettable but we all feel a certain schadenfreude (a German word for which there is no English equivalent but which means approximately ‘malicious delight in others’ misfortunes’) from time to time and we are certainly more interested in hearing about the terribly bad things that happen to people than in learning about the wonderful things people experience and do. For a newspaper a favourable trade balance can’t compare with a ‘good’ murder. Saints aren’t half as much fun as sinners.
Every newspaper, however constructively public-minded it may be, has to cater for his fundamental human propensity to be fascinated by lurid tragedy and bored by quiet achievement. It sometimes distresses those who know very well that there is quite as much good news as bad, quite as many achievements as failures, quite as much honesty as scandal ‒ probably more, else how would the world go on? ‒ yet still see that newspapers have this bias towards the unworthy. But it is simply in the nature of the business.
Let me give an illustration. It is one I remember well, of course, because at the time I knew the details and had first-hand experience of the full range of energy, skill, commitment and expertise involved. Currently there might be any number of other examples from the experiences of scores of companies, corporations, organisations, departments in the public service, agencies, associations and individuals. My example derives from sugar’s remarkable recovery from the disastrous depths to which it had sunk in 1990. That industry’s huge achievement in improving productivity in the next three years was by any measurement an outstanding story. In this day and age, more than ever, business success depends on increasing productivity. Here was our most important industry giving an astonishing lead in this respect to the whole country; in the field cane yields by 1993 the best since 1975, in the factories sugar extraction rates the best since 1978. I recall the good feeling of a very satisfying achievement. In a real sense there had been very few more important developments in Guyana at the time. Yet the newspapers by no means highlighted the story. Far from it. I remember the disappointment of those involved in the success story. At best the news was noted as a matter of duty after we issued a couple of detailed press releases. The story was followed with lukewarm interest. I suppose no one becomes a star reporter investigating improved sugar recoveries.
The reason for that is extremely simple and very understandable: for attracting readers the subject held no glamour whatsoever. It was no good saying that sugar’s renewed success affected for the good every man, woman and child in the country and deserved a few bold front-page headlines. That simply does not happen. Such stories are fortunate if they get the same coverage as that Finnish nightclub waitress who lost her job because she wouldn’t shave her pubic hair ‒ and they certainly don’t begin to merit, in newspaper terms, one tenth the coverage of the latest lurid murder or high profile scandal. Newspapers have to see the world that way.
I hope I will not be misunderstood. The last thing I myself wish to read in the newspapers is an interminable series of success stories, upbeat cheer-leading pieces, and tales of the great and the good performing at the top of their forms. I am as schadenfreudian as the next person. I enjoy juicy scandal, sensations, disaster, delicious gossip which don’t have anything to do with me. I would hate not to have been told about that Finnish waitress. If on the same day the police cracked the infamous unsolved Monica Reece murder case and a magnificent balance of payments result for Guyana was made known I think I know what story would have to lead the front page.
All I have set out to do is ruminate a little on journalism’s eternal dilemma and perhaps offer the gentlest possible hint that in their heady circulation wars our leading newspapers should not entirely forget their other role which is to raise reading standards, educate, enlighten, and intellectually satisfy.
In Robert Skidelsky’s magnificent biography of John Maynard Keynes, he tells at one point how Keynes writes to a friend about the necessity for “setting in motion those forces of instruction and imagination which change opinion.” Keynes goes on to say, “The assertion of truth, the unveiling of illusion, the dissipation of hate, the enlargement and instruction of men’s hearts and minds must be the means.” Not bad words for any editor to glance at now and then.
