Twenty-Four Hours News Cycle Makes Oceans Out Of Sun Showers
O.J. Simpson’s Car Chase, Don Lemon’s Nikki Haley “Not In Her Prime” Comment, and Will Smith’s Academy Award slap are examples.
Is the 24-hour news cycle a vehicle for making minor stories seem important? In my opinion, the answer is a resounding “yes.”
I first began to think about how the 24- hour news cycle has made what should have been a one-day story, maybe two days to be generous, into a saga, reminiscent of soap operas.
The incident that generated my thinking was the June 17, 1994, O.J. Simpson hour-and-a half Ford Bronco car chase over 60 miles that dominated TV coverage.
“On June 17, 1994, O.J. Simpson, an NFL hall of fame running back turned film and television personality, fled in a white Ford Bronco SUV after having been served the arrest warrants for the murder of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ron Goldman. Instead of turning himself in, Simpson took off through the highways of Los Angeles in an attempt to elude police. Inside the car, Simpson held a gun to his head while his friend and former teammate, Al Cowlings, drove the Bronco,” reported CBS on that day.
Was the car chase worthy of coverage? Certainly, it was. It was also worthy of TV networks to break into their regular program from time-to-time to tell viewers what was happening. But to keep cameras on the chase for the entire 90 minutes was, with nothing new to report, journalism malpractice, in my opinion.
The Simpson car chase was the first example that convinced me that the 24-hour news cycle often makes oceans out of sun showers.
The most recent example was Don Lemon’s comment about Nikki Haley not being in her prime. Certainly, it was an uncalled for comment that probably would have been edited out if the program was taped.
On Feb. 17, the New York Times reported, “Mr. Lemon, a CNN veteran with a history of televised gaffes, roiled colleagues on Thursday when he asserted on the air that Nikki Haley, the 51-year-old Republican presidential candidate, “isn’t in her prime, sorry.”
“A woman is considered to be in her prime in her 20s and 30s and maybe 40s,” Mr. Lemon said, to the visible dismay of his “CNN This Morning” co-anchors, Poppy Harlow and Kaitlan Collins. He refused to back down after Ms. Harlow questioned his remarks, telling her to “look it up.” On Feb. 16, Variety reported, “Lemon apologized Thursday via Twitter for his comments.
Was the incident worthy of the extensive coverage it received? Have we now become so politically correct that every time someone makes a dim-witted remark that person has to be punished? So it appears.
While uncalled for, Lemon’s remark was trivial compared to the daily comments by Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, and Laura Ingraham on Fox and by the former twice-impeached president Donald Trump.
In my opinion the Lemon incident was another example of how the 24-hour news cycle turns sun showers into oceans.
My final example, is the “slap heard around the world,” when Will Smith slapped Chris Rock at the Academy Awards last year. Was the incident worthy of “hard news” coverage? Certainly. But was it worthy of continuous coverage? Not in my opinion. Prior to the 24-hour news cycle, the incident might have been covered for a day two and not receive the extensive reporting it did in respected major newspapers, reminiscent of the periodicals at the check-out counter of super markets.
Respected newspapers like the New York Times and Wall Street Journal (my daily pubs) now often publish lengthy articles that before the advent of the 24-hjour news cycle would have received short shrift.
Sadly, in my opinion, the 24-hour news cycle has resulted in making a sun shower into an ocean at the expense of important news.
The Important PR Lesson
The way news is covered has changed because of the 24-hour news cycle. But too many PR people still cling to public relations rules that were crafted many years ago. Major publications have changed in order to keep up with the changing views of our society. People who craft PR programs should do the same.
