If It Bleeds, It Leads

I’ve taken to listening to my internet radio when I go to bed at night. I have a Logitech device that is about the size of the old-fashioned table-top radios, and I can listen to anything that’s live-streamed over the internet. It’s a refreshing alternative to the fare that’s on TV.

One of my favorites, is listening to 1010 WINS news, “All News, All the Time”, out of New York City.

Last night their lead story was about a funeral in Ridgewood, NJ for Michael Feeney. Michael was a 10-year old boy, who suffered from a rare form of bone cancer. During his fight with this disease, he received many honors, but the best one was being named the honorary Police Chief of Ridgewood, NJ for a day. His spirit and pluck inspired an awful lot of people.

The funeral had a full police escort, a flag-draped casket, and bagpipes. He was laid to rest the same way he lived his life – in style.

The fact that this story was the lead was what touched me. There is an old saying in journalism – “If it bleeds, it leads”. Freely speaking that means that the news-hungry public prefers guts, gore and violence, to “feel good” stories. That’s not very flattering to us, as a society.

WINS went away from this tenet. They could have used several other more conventional lead stories… a shooting in the Bronx… a DUI fatal accident on the Long Island Expressway… a mugging of an 80-year old woman in Brooklyn… but they didn’t. They chose a heart-warming, and tear-inducing story of a brave 10-year old boy.

Here is where the surprise came for me.

I sent an email to WINS telling them how much I appreciated their using the funeral as their lead story, instead of something more dire or gruesome. I got back the “automated” thank you message, along with instructions about how to follow them on Twitter and Facebook. I’m a Facebook user, so I signed up, and their early morning posting was about the “overwhelming response” to the Feeney funeral story.

I guess my fellow citizens are not as ghastly as many editors think. Maybe we really DO like good news over bad news. I’m sure the old adage, “If it bleeds, it leads”, is still going strong, but at least for one day a news agency went against “conventional” wisdom, and it paid off for them.

Some folks told me it was because the story came right after Thanksgiving, and others said it was because we are in the Christmas season. Maybe that’s true, but I don’t care. It happened. I guess there’s hope for us as a society after all.