On the WLKY website, in the news section, there is a story titled "Local T-shirt company pulls merchandise with expletive anti-police message." The article is about how Cafe Press pulls an anti-police t-shirts because of how they might be put into the law-enforcement fiasco and how they might be perceived. This article breaks some of the seven yardsticks like, newsworthiness and fairness.
This breaks the newsworthiness yardstick because to be newsworthy it has to affect you six months or longer, and when a website not many people even know of, cancels a shirt its not something someone remembers for very long, especially when there is more important things going on with the same topic and others. As they explain the story in either the video or written form it neglects to show how its allowed in the news section. It might be talked about some, but it doesn't show promise to actually matter in the future, because most likely something else will take their place in a week to a month on the same topic, law-enforcement.
The other seven yardstick they break is fairness. The fairness yardstick is about getting more then one side of the story, or at least one of the main participant to the story, the police. You would think that with an article on anti-police merchandise, they would try to see how the police feel and think about it. Instead they only interview Cafe Press, and the citizens, not the police officers, the ones they are talking about.
1. No link to the story. How can I read it to judge for myself?
ReplyDelete2. It's definitely newsworthy because of the ongoing national conversation about police violence (both by and against police). If they didn't talk to any police officers, then you're right about fairness, but the article is still newsworthy.