A News Editor's View
Year in review
D
stories lost in the noise
ecember is usually the time of year when many of us look forward to some “down-time” to spend with loved ones and the opportunity to look back on the year, reflect on both the good and bad times, and see what we can learn from them.
In the world of news, it is also very often a time to look back at some of the biggest stories of the past 12 months. Stories like:
of those in the stories that fade away, we are simply not able to care about all the things all the time. Case in point: as I write this, the focus on the ongoing war in Ukraine seems to have shifted to a focus on Israel, Palestine and Hamas, but even the latter war is starting to be reported on less, or at least the journalism that is still being done to highlight the war is being shared less, and taking a “back seat” in people’s consciousness as we all return to our day-to-day concerns and try to find the bits of joy we can in the world around us.
The last point is a very important one in this conversation The alleged Chinese spy balloons shot down over the United because the finger is often pointed at “The Media” for ignoring States; the Coronation of King Charles III; the resignation of or neglecting certain topics or themes. The humorous side of New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern (incidentally also this is seen in people on social media sharing actual news the topic of my first column for FlyNamibia back in March); reports of a certain situation with captions along the lines the arrest of Italian Mafia boss, Matteo Denaro, after 30 years of: “Why is the media not reporting on this?” or “Here is the on the run; the war between Israel and Hamas; the coups in news the media doesn’t want you to know about.” What they Niger and Gabon; the death of Silvio Berlusconi; the expansion are really saying, perhaps without even realising it, is that of BRICS; the brief loss and relief-inducing rediscovery of a people, not the media, are not talking about or sharing news radio-active capsule on an Australian highway; the Titan stories about the things they feel they should be. submersible fiasco; thousands of migrant deaths; Uganda criminalising homosexuality but As newsrooms are fighting for Mauritius decriminalising it; the survival due to declining income and launch of the biggest oil refinery growing threats from social media ever built in Africa; and the rise of organisations and AI-powered search December is also very ChatGPT; to name just a few. engines, the only “agenda” of “The Media” is merely to “live another often a time to look It is also the time of year when it day”, and the best way to do that is back at some of the is worth remembering some of the to provide their audiences with the other news stories that have slipped news that they want to hear. This is a biggest stories of the out of the general consciousness far cry from “The Media” having the past 12 months. but that have not yet been resolved. kind of power some people think it Stories like: does to influence the narrative. As far back as 2018, Nieman Lab reported The Syrian civil war that is still that “the news cycles for some of the unresolved 12 years later; the 96 “Chibok girls” who remain biggest moments of [the year] only lasted for a median of in captivity after being kidnapped by Boko Haram in 2014; seven days – from the very beginning of higher-than-normal the ongoing conflict in Ethiopia and the war in Sudan; the interest until the Google searches fizzled out”, and that “bad investigation into the 2020 Beirut port explosion; the fate news seems to go away faster than good news.” of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar; the fact that Pretty Nkambule, Yvonne Mnisi and Solomon Nyirenda were only So, as we head into the festive season and most of us try to declared dead in October this year, despite having been relax and maybe cut ourselves off from the rest of the world trapped by the collapse of the Lily Mine in South Africa on 5 to find those little bits of joy, perhaps we should take a little February 2016; or, sticking with miners, the fact that to this time to also remember the stories and the people we have day no-one has been held accountable for the deaths of 44 not thought about in a while. people at the Marikana Mine in 2012. Until next month (which will be next year), enjoy your Why, you may ask, does this happen? Why do some stories journey. seem to just slip away? Why do people seem to stop caring? Part of it probably has to do with the fact that since the David Bishop advent of the so-called “24-hour news cycle” in the mid1990s, and increasingly so with the rise of online publications and social media, we are just inundated with so much information all the time that we need to be able to shut some things off. While we do not become unfeeling about the plight
FLYNAMIBIA DECEMBER 2023
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