Omit one thing from a news story, and the truth in it degrades. The truth turns to an outright lie if that omission is vital to the storytelling process.
Many details are omitted from news stories to save space and time. It happens all the time.
“Man Critically Injures Woman with One Punch.”
The story doesn’t mention she hit his face with a bottle earlier. He left the restaurant, and she followed him into the street with threats of more violence. She’s in hospital while the media (and the public) wants him charged.
“Mother Kills Children by Driving Into Lake.”
There’s nothing of the seven-year-long psychological and emotional abuse she suffered from an overbearing mother-in-law. The public focuses on the mother-turned-baby-killer, but the real criminal is overlooked. The mother-in-law successfully erased that bitch from her son’s life and did her son a favour. Losing those bastard kids was a bonus.
“Bridge Collapses. 72 Dead. Engineer To Blame?”
The engineer’s name is mentioned eight times. The conclusion for the reader is set. The news writer escapes making an outright accusation because a question mark ends the headline.
The community takes to social media, baying for blood from engineer Sam Thompson. A year-long investigation discovered that the contractors had covered up building shortcuts. A project manager was found to have received kickbacks for using one product and signing off on another. Two individuals went to jail, and the contractor was fined. Sam Thompson was exonerated. This didn’t make headline news, and some news outlets didn’t report it at all.
Sam Thompson committed suicide before that final report was handed down.
Honest news is a waste of time. It takes too long to consume. Correct, factual and non-leading news reporting is boring and tedious.
It also makes less money than the heavily edited, razzled-up, shortened-down ones. Advertisers love entertaining news, too, because it sells more products. Razz helps everyone in the news chain!
We don’t need to know everything anyway. Don’t bother with details and backstories. I’m in a hurry!
Sure! No problem. We’ll shorten the story for you and cut it the boring bits. Leave it to us to figure out what you don’t need to know!
Would a media outlet admit when it gets it wrong? Would it write a public apology, taking responsibility for hindering investigations due to selective omissions and allowing reckless conclusions to exist? Would it make front-page headline news if it did?
Most of us wouldn’t care.
Apologies are not entertaining, and there’s no money in them. There’s no horror, no justice, only a reminder that everyone was quick to judge. Complicity ruins it for everyone.
Omissions speed things up. The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth is for another time and place. This is the news. Selective omission editing is okay. Leading readers to conclusions without facts to substantiate them is fine, too.
Twenty-four hours from now, no one will care. That’s ancient news.
In SEETHINGS, you’ll see how the news media manipulates its stories to meet its ends, entertaining audiences but negatively affecting crime investigations. It leads us to Kurdaitcha, a silent assassin who kills citizens in a storm-ravaged city. The media plays a crucial part in helping our serial killer commit murder.
-M
Discover more from Michael Forman – Author of Dark Fiction & Drama
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