When It Isn’t National News

De Anza College is about 10 miles from my home. It isn’t an elite school. It has no national visibility. Like many, if not all, community colleges in California it does have sports teams. And when it comes to baseball, those teams can be very good, good enough that players from places like De Anza get drafted as major league prospects.

This month an alleged rape occurred in the city of San Jose that possibly involved baseball players from De Anza College. Eight players were suspended. DNA samples were taken. The baseball team cancelled three games. A couple of nights ago, they played their first game without those eight players.

The rape is not major news in the Bay Area. It certainly is not national news. No parking lot full of news media trucks has descended on De Anza College. Its president isn’t being besieged by the likes of CNN, CBS, et al.

Is there a racial angle? Nothing has been stated in the news. The alleged victim could be white, black, Asian, Hispanic, who knows? The same could be said for the players. No charges have been filed yet.

Without the glare of national media and only minor attention by local media a college and its baseball team can make reasonable decisions. A tragedy may have occurred involving some students, but life can indeed go on.

What makes headline news and what doesn’t is an interesting thing to me. Why the death of Anna Nicole-Smith, a very minor celebrity who married a billionaire, captures the attention of the press for a few weeks when a war in Iraq with world-wide political ramifications and where tens of thousands have died often gets buried on page ten is an amazing thing. Ultimately, the news business is about selling newspapers and advertising time. The media do inform, but what they choose to emphasize is usually designed to titillate and fulminate. They want to appeal to emotions. Emotions sell newspapers and they make people sit in front of the TV a while longer.

About a year ago, I read about an alleged rape at Duke University in the New York Times. My first reaction was, why on earth is an alleged rape in North Carolina being covered extensively in New York? Don’t they have rapes in New York City?

I couldn’t believe it was national news. But like Anna Nicole-Smith it was a story that could be used to arouse emotions. It could be used to sell a few newspapers. It was a gossipy thing with no real national implications. The national news media embarrassed themselves by covering a story that I’m sure they knew was just lurid news candy. They do it all of the time.

I read the New York Times every weekday. For me, it’s the best out there. The quality of the writing is wonderful. Every reporter knows how to write an interesting sentence. That said, like all news media, it is more than willing to sink very low to sell newspapers. They certainly did so with regard to the Duke lacrosse affair. But I don’t want to focus on that.

Instead, I’d like to mention something else. Several years ago, a lurid murder took place in New York City and the victim was a relative of a friend. There was a racial angle. The victim was white. The murderers were black. There was a society angle. The father of the victim was a very prominent national figure. As can be expected, the media descended on the family. No, the story didn’t have any real implications for New York or the nation. But it was a juicy gossipy thing. My friend said that out of all the media, the news service that was the absolute worst in terms of invading family privacy was the New York Times. At a horrible time of personal tragedy in their lives, the Times was relentless. They wanted their story humanity be damned.

It’s very worthwhile for this country to have an informed public. It would be ideal if the information pushed by the media was of value for the public to make informed decisions as citizens. That indeed happens, but not as often as it should.