Thread by @SethAbramson

Hours media will spend today discussing a tragic shooting in San Jose that is identical—as a news story—to another such shooting we'll see tomorrow and the day after that and the day after that: 3

Hours media has EVER spent on the January 5 Trump International war council: 0

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(🔓) PROOF UNLOCKED: As a journalism professor, I've lectured at the university level on how "newsworthiness" is determined. US workplace shootings—almost without exception—fail the 10-step test. A PROOF lecture on the topic is now available to the public: sethabramson.substack.com/p/lecture-seri…

(MORE) The U.S. is a country of 332 million that has one mass shooting per day. Media spends 3+ hours on scores of such shootings annually, *instead* of doing new investigative reporting. This shooting is tragic and is news in Santa Clara County, CA. It's not newsworthy in Maine.

(MORE) Media covers a CA workplace shooting on a broadcast that goes to viewers in the other 49 states because people tune in for tragedy. Period. I am telling everyone that as a matter of journalism shootings like this one are desperately tragic but fail the newsworthiness test.

(MORE) If we were a nation with almost no mass shootings, like England or Japan or Norway or New Zealand, absolutely: a mass shooting would be newsworthy nationwide. If we were just at the *start* of a rash of US mass shootings, media could do what's called a "trend piece" on it.

(MORE) US media covers every US mass shooting the same way: with the same narratives, the same interview questions, the same press conferences, the same on-air analysts. Americans learn nothing from the 796th mass shooting covered in identical fashion by CNN over the last decade.

(MORE) Mass shootings are *tragic*—and this country needs more gun control regulations. (In fact, we needed them 20 years ago.) But media isn't covering them for that reason. They're covering them because they're cheap and easy to cover as a matter of journalism and people watch.

(MORE) We don't consider the "opportunity cost" of knee-jerk, copy-cat coverage of the sort of event that (sadly) happens every day in America and we clearly (sadly) learn nothing from. What's *not* being covered so that we can watch today's mass shooting coverage—and tomorrow's?

(MORE) We have a media that'll tell us when a new pro-Trump insurgent foot-soldier is arrested—there have been 494 such arrests so far.

But are they asking *any* hard questions of Team Trump or Congress—as investigative journalists—to find out who *plotted* the insurrection? No.

(MORE) As a professor, "newsworthiness" is part of my beat—and it's a complicated, sensitive, difficult topic. As a curatorial journalist, identifying stories that are under-covered or have been "lost in the archive" is my beat. So I see today's CA coverage differently than some.

(MORE) Part of the problem is "we don't know what we don't know"—we can't *see* the news that isn't being covered so CNN can spend 3+ hours in San Jose providing *identical coverage* to the *last* 793 mass shootings in America. I'm telling you that we are missing *major* stories.

(MORE) Examples:

1) The NYT reported months ago that there are 125,000 "under-counted" virus deaths. That's been ignored by media—ignored. And it's 125,000 dead.
2) Trump's insurrection is the #2 story in America. There's been *no* coverage of the secret meetings that led to it.

(MORE) Did you know there were meetings and events in DC to plan the insurrection on December 11, December 12, December 18, December 19, December 21, and December 22? At Mar-a-Lago on December 28? At the White House on January 3 and January 4? At Trump International on January 5?

(MORE) We know about these meetings because *1 or 2* outlets—out of literally *thousands* in America—reported on them. But because no one else picked the stories up, (a) very few saw them, (b) they were forgotten quickly, (c) no one did the work to link them up to other stories.

(MORE) "Media" is an information ecosystem. A media "outlet" is a node in the system. So too often we get one or two "outlets" (nodes) pinging a major story, but "media" ignores it—so the news doesn't permeate the system. You know what always permeates the system? Mass shootings.

(MORE) If, when "media" amplifies news of a mass shooting, it did so in *any way* that meets the definition of "newsworthiness" (see my lecture, linked to above) it would be worthwhile for our information ecosystem to be permeated by news of a US mass shooting for the 794th time.

(MORE) The reason we never have this conversation—and media knows we won't—is that to suggest mass shootings are tragic *and* no longer meet the definition of "newsworthiness" is to get fatuous responses as we see in this thread. Ones that suggest I'm minimizing mass shootings.

(MORE) What I'm saying is the opposite: I'm saying the way media covers mass shootings *avoids* covering news stories that—if properly covered—could lead to action on gun control. It *avoids* coverage of political scandals. It *avoids* coverage of 125,000 uncounted COVID-19 dead.

(MORE) I earlier said that there's one mass shooting per day in America, which makes it irresponsible for CNN and MSNBC and others to cover each *the exact same way* over and over just to get eyeballs on sets. A reader corrects me: there are *ten* mass shootings every week now.

(MORE) If you wonder—I think we all do—why you're seeing no serious coverage of [name a big issue media habitually ignores; there are 1000s], the main reason, in terms of cable-news hours, you're not seeing it covered is because of crime stories that fail the newsworthiness test.

(END) I want to say how surprised I am—really pleasantly surprised—at how many are expressing in the comments that they feel the same way about this. We all seem to *know* what media's doing—ignoring endless big stories to do what's cheap, easy and lucrative—and we all resent it.