Commentary

Balancing the commercial appeal of the Peterson trial with other news

By John McManus with analysis by Kate Cheney
Posted June 23, 2004

Suppose Walter Lippmann were right: The purpose of news is to provide a picture of the world upon which citizens can act. Were that standard taken seriously, which stories would editors choose for the front-page?

To find out which they did pick, we took a ruler to the cover page of the San Jose Mercury News from Monday June 21 back to May 22 -- a monthlong snapshot. Looking only at articles written by Mercury News reporters, we measured which stories merited the most space on the most-read page of the paper.

With so much happening, you might expect close competition. Gov. Schwarzenegger has been wheeling and dealing. Legislators are thrashing out a state budget. School districts are declaring bankruptcy. Counties and cities are sawing into the muscle and bone of local government service. The Bay Area economy is sputtering back to life. Ronald Reagan passed away, as have local soldiers sent to Iraq.

But just two stories dominated the Mercury News' front-page during the last month. The former president's legacy and the trial of a Central Valley man charged with murdering his pregnant wife. Even when stories were lumped into categories like "the economy," "Governor Schwarzenegger and the state Legislature," "the environment" and "education," nothing approached the coverage of Mr. Reagan and the trial of Modesto resident Scott Peterson.

Mr. Reagan's death netted 732 square inches on the newspaper's front-pages, all in the week after he died. Mr. Peterson's trial accounted for 619 square inches. The next closest competitor was a topic -- all stories about the military. Including D-Day reminiscences, it totaled 262.

John McManus

By contrast, many topics that have a profound impact on South Bay residents' lives didn't crack the top 10. Editors displayed just 124 square inches reported by the Mercury News' staff about politics over the month. Technology/science claimed 74 square inches, transportation 72, health 37, energy just 14 -- despite threats of summer blackouts and renewed state efforts to retrieve billions from companies like Enron.

For comparison, we also looked at how much front-page space another respected California newspaper gave the Peterson trial. The Los Angeles Times did not run a single story about it on 1A.

Applying Lippmann's test

Because Ronald Reagan was such an influential figure in state and national politics and popular enough to win the highest office in California and the U.S. twice, you might expect big play on 1A. Mr. Peterson sold fertilizer in Modesto. He never ran for office, but was twice voted MVP on his high school golf team. He fished some.

It's difficult to argue that the picture of the world upon which citizens can act would be much diminished were the Peterson trial relegated to the local front, or even an inside page.

But news is a business and must make a profit to benefit anyone. Many are clearly interested in the Peterson case and that public curiosity creates a compelling reason for covering the trial.

For business reasons, the Mercury News might choose to carry news of the trial. But positioning it so prominently on the front-page swamps far more consequential stories.

A question of balance

It's a question of balance. Placing more than twice the emphasis on the trial of an out-of-town murder suspect as on the environment, the economy or ongoing budget crises at the state or local level is embarrassing for a newspaper ranked in the top-10 of American journalism. Both for journalistic and business reasons.

First, three concerns from the perspective of journalism ethics:

• Making the Peterson case the top story of the day squanders the public's limited attention to news. A 2002 survey by Northwestern University shows the average American newspaper reader spends just 27 minutes per weekday looking at the paper. Interesting but unimportant stories distract rather than engage us, making us civic couch potatoes. This is the exact opposite of what news philosopher Lippmann proposed as journalism's purpose.
  
  When editors complain that more people know the name of Scott Peterson's unborn son than the name of their state or congressional representative, they must share the blame with apathetic citizens.
  
• The Peterson case displaces stories the public needs to know to exercise its rights and to carry out its responsibilities. Only five or six stories typically make the front-page. Because these set the public's agenda more than any other stories, editors have an ethical obligation to use them more for public, than corporate, interest.



• The trial displaces staff. Assigning teams of reporters to cover the Redwood City trial prevents them from bringing other events to light.

Questionable business practice

• Giving consumers what they want is a cardinal rule of business. But if they can get a similar product for free elsewhere -- on television, in give-away daily tabloids like the Palo Alto News, on cable networks, on Web sites devoted exclusively to every twist of the plot -- why should they pay for coverage in the Mercury News?
  

  The Mercury News adds far more value for consumers when it produces reports available nowhere else, such as its Sunday expose of cost overruns at the new San Jose City Hall. When it covers consequential stories with its exceptionally talented staff of writers, photographers and world-class graphic artists, the Mercury News owns the South Bay news market.

• Reaching out for marginal or non-readers -- or more cynically, for a female demographic valuable to advertisers -- with splashy play of sensational stories may attract a few new subscribers. But it risks driving away longtime subscribers who find the paper less essential than it once was. I can't think of a better advertisement for the New York Times than the Mercury News' coverage of the Peterson trial.

As a daily reader of the Mercury News for over two decades, it pains me to see a wonderful newspaper lower its standards in such a dubious pursuit of expanded circulation.