Harry Potter Was a Better Story
by Mike Antonucci, Mercury News Popular Culture Writer
Er, what were these stories, displaced
by Harry Potter, that would
have so elevated
civic discourse and community life? What was this
information we so
badly needed to know?
What our editors think of our
readers (who must include a few people
who don't feel dirty
to earn their living from marketing ) is that Harry
Potter was a repeat
front-page story because the public chose it to be. It
was all those folks
out there who built that story into a phenomenon of
provocative
financial, social and literary interest.
What I don't think about those
readers is that they were a
manipulated,
advertising-driven herd that wiser editors needed to redirect.
That broad, unifying
and inspirational passion for Harry is the antithesis
of demographically
targeted, culturally Balkanizing marketing-think.
What the Merc did is called riding a
good story. Each day you check
to see if it has any
legs left. There are always choices. That hour by hour
process is
exhilarating, erratic and incredibly spontaneous and benign
compared to the
calculation and cynicism implicit in that theorem about
"buzz."
I'm all for serious news, as long as
it's patently relevant, can
encompass what's
joyful and separates the pretentious from the important. A
lot of readers I
know see the front pages of newspapers only for as long as
it takes to throw
them aside and pull out a section that means something to
their lives.
Harry Potter wasn't a bigger story
than others. It was a better
story than
others.