LETTER FROM THE EDITOR: DECIDING WHAT'S NEWS IS DELICATE BALANCING ACT

At least one reader of the Southeast Missourian wants to know why we didn't have more stories about the young mother who captured the sympathy of the nation with her pleas for the safe return of her carjacked sons and then later confessed she drowned them in the family car.

News is such an imprecise business. What I think is interesting has to be balanced against what readers want to know. And readers depend largely on editors to make good decisions about the news they read. Hundreds -- thousands, actually -- of stories are produced every day about events both near and far. There is no way to publish every news item in the world in one newspaper. Not even the New York Times, whose motto is "All the news that is fit to print," comes close to giving readers absolutely everything.

In an effort to give our readers a well-balanced sampling of the day's news within any given day's space limits -- limits, by the way, that change every day depending on the amount of advertising space that is sold -- editors of the Southeast Missourian meet every afternoon in what is called a budget meeting.

The budget meeting isn't about spending dollars. It is about allocating that day's news in that day's space. Among the considerations are news of local interest, state and national news of importance and international news of significance. Editors pore over mini-budgets of local news, photographs and graphics as well as state, national and international budgets from the Associated Press.

After several minutes of discussion, a consensus begins to develop. This is the start of a ranking process in which editors decide, on behalf of readers, what the most important news of the day is and where it should appear in the paper. The most important story, in the editors' opinions, goes at the top of Page 1. And so on.

From time to time there is no clear-cut consensus. This is when editors show they are human beings too, complete with human nature and sharing many of the quirks of our readers.

Some editors, for example, feel strongly about stories like the tale of knife-wielding Lorena Bobbitt. Other editors feel strongly about a good balance of stories that will appeal to women and men. Others feel strongly about a good balance of local, state, national and international news. Photographers feel strongly about photo choices.

Out of all these strong feelings comes the newspaper you read every morning. For the most part, readers and editors alike are satisfied with the results. But not always.

Some editors here are still questioning why the story of the carjacked children became a national sensation, at least before the bizarre turn of events when the mother confessed. Was it a basic human instinct that responds to the emotional appeal of a grieving mother whose children have been snatched from her? If so, why this story and not any of the literally hundreds of similar stories that happen every day, every week, every month and every year?

Much of this phenomenon might be explained by what Peter Kann, publisher of the Wall Street Journal, calls "the growing media fascination with the bizarre, the perverse and pathological -- Lorena Bobbitt journalism."

In a speech last month to the Inter American Publishers Association in Toronto, Kann had this to say:

"Such so-called journalism helps to instantly legitimize almost any crackpot idea, deviant behavior or alleged victimization in our society. My point is not to argue for good news as opposed to bad news, but rather to propose that editors ask whether much of this amounts to much news at all. We all ought to ask ourselves more often and more honestly why we play news events as we do.

"Is a retired running back allegedly killing his wife really the crime of the century, the story of the year, or an event laden with social, racial and legal significance? Can it really be that the Wall Street Journal is the only publication in America that doesn't see O.J. Simpson as a running Page 1 story?"

These are interesting questions, and I regret that I don't have a ready answer. But I do have a sense of the obligation editors have to readers. It is an obligation taken very seriously by editors at the Southeast Missourian. If readers wonder why certain stories are published and others aren't, it isn't because we didn't try to make the best choices.

~R. Joe Sullivan is the editor of the Southeast Missourian.