And what if the Pope dies?
This was the comment at editorial news conference on Monday evening. It was one of those damnable which test “”news judgment”. There were two Page One leads: Cathy Freeman was bound to do something later in the evening, win or lose. It had all the elements: “”Our Cathy” carrying on her shoulders the aspirations of her people; her individual dream come true; or brave Cathy graciously accepts silver etc etc. It was bound to be “”a good story”. It had all the critical elements: human drama, national political significance, huge public interest on both a sensational and serious level.
It did not warrant the absurd comparison that one newspaper made. Running 400 metres, even if you beat the best runners in the world, is not an achievement that can be compared with unifying and expanding Russia, introducing European culture to a largely backward horde, ensuring Russian women got access to education, expanding hospitals and schools etc, etc. Nonetheless, the headline read “”Catherine the Great”.
Nevertheless, it was bound to be the main story of the day from the time SOCOG put out the timetable.
Or was it. Here in out little polity a major kerfuffle has been brewing about the redevelopment of Bruce Stadium. It, too, was linked to the Olympics. On the day Cathy ran around the oval after months of expectation, speculation and preparation, our Legislative Assembly met to receive the Auditor-General’s report into Bruce Stadium. Fifteen months ago, the kerfuffle had almost brought down the government. The report was a shocker. Its described a litany of mismanagement, bungling and exaggerated hopes for huge sums of money to come pouring in from an appreciative private sector which would benefit from the inevitable boom the stadium would bring. In fact the mug taxpayer picked up the tab.
We had two Page One leads. It required a fairly deft handling of the Page One layout. For casual sales in the newsagents, supermarkets and the like, it is important to get major points above the fold (in the top half of the page) where they can be seen on a newsstand even if the paper is folded in two. It is a question of maximising sales and informing the public. Contrary to popular belief the latter is more important because, ultimately, consistently good daily sales will only come about if you provide quality information. One-day wonders do not add a great deal to circulation however up-beat. Most copies of tomorrow’s Canberra Times are already sold. Also, the scoop, exclusive story does not add much to circulation. Of its nature few know about it in the first place to make the effort to buy the paper they would not otherwise buy. Set pieces are better circulation generators, particularly if the event has had television and radio coverage beforehand, because so often radio and television do not have the detail.
In that context Cathy and Bruce were a terrible couple. We would have preferred them on different days. One splash a day would have allowed better treatment of each on Page One and inside and would have allowed two bites at the circulation cherry.
Doubles are a damnation. Ayatollah Khomeini died on the same day at the Tienanmen Square killings. The cricket pitch at Lords was dug up on Budget night.
Would we get a treble? What if the Pope died? What if the Queen Mum died? Or a young princess was killed in a car accident? Events like that on top of Cathy and Bruce would have created an interesting exercise in news judgment. Any idiot can deal with it on successive days. Each leads Page One on its day. But when they hit together, the way the news judgment has been exercised becomes more apparent. And that exercise of news judgment reveals something of the values of the people who make the judgment and the values of the newspaper as a whole. It sometimes results in caustic comments from readers: “”So, a woman running around an oval is more important than 1000 people dying in a Bangladesh flood.”
The Adelaide Advertiser probably had a difficult evening, too. They did not have Bruce Stadium, but a second surfer eaten by a shark. Now the Advertiser is a tabloid. That makes the choice more difficult. A tabloid page realistically can accommodate only one main story and picture. A broadsheet can have two bob each way. For example, we had Cathy as a big picture with two mid-range lines of headline over it. The Bruce article ran next to it with three large lines of heading. Take your pick as to which one was more prominent. If the Pope had died, that story would have been stripped across the top with a large headline and the Bruce and Cathy stories pushed down.
Though years ago in a newsroom of a Melbourne tabloid someone asked the question on Grand Final day, “”What if the Pope died?” And the answer was 96 point bold type: POPE TO MISS FINAL.
The other testing time for news judgment is when there is no obvious major item to lead Page One. That’s when the discussion in news conference is most vigorous. Often the result is to put one item across the top with medium type and one on the left down the page with big type. A reader could identify either as the main story. “”So, uncut grass is more important than 1000 dying in a Bangladesh flood”.
The other difficulty is that readers (quite reasonably) treat the paper as if its contents were selected in one go. In fact, the pages go one by one, with hours if not days between them. The Sunday travel pages might be done on Wednesday and the plates made. On Saturday a coup in Fiji might make the palm and lagoons of Fiji described in the travel page a little ludicrous. Or some late breaking news item on Page 1, a burst main wreaking Floriade with a flood, might make an item on Page 5 ludicrous –colourful blooms and gnomes and the Floriade program of events. But it is too late to change it because the press must start at midnight — unless the Pope dies.