Third Time's A Charm
By: Ellie Thornsbury
Here we go again with the un-newsworthiness. A shooting took place in a Pennsylvania synagogue this past Saturday, it was a tragic event killing eleven people and injuring six more. When I first heard about this my heart immediately went out to the victims and their families. However, I was left confused when I checked WHAS's website, noticing that three of their top seven stories were about this event. I am in no way trying to disrespect the victims of this tragedy when I say I have some problems with how WHAS covered it.
Going back to the Seven Yardsticks of Journalism, local relevance is important. A local news station needs to inform the community about problems and events that are important and impactful. A shooting this big is definitely worthy of attention, but I simply don't understand why WHAS felt the need to write three full stories on it. Heather Fountaine wrote an article on how the Louisville Jewish community is reacting to the shooting, Marco Della Cava and Elizabeth Weise wrote about the victims, and Marc Levy and Mark Gillispie wrote about the event itself. Could the five of them not combine the three stories into one? I don't understand how WHAS assigned five members of their team to cover the same story. They could've easily combined the three articles into one, leaving more space on the website for other stories.
The synagogue shooting could make a relevant story if the author explains the impact on our community. But, WHAS missed this opportunity by publishing three stories on the same exact thing.
https://www.whas11.com/article/news/nation-world/police-synagogue-gunman-said-he-wanted-all-jews-to-die/507-608650875
https://www.whas11.com/article/news/nation-world/remembering-the-11-victims-of-the-pittsburgh-synagogue-shooting/417-608847448
https://www.whas11.com/article/news/local/louisvilles-jewish-community-in-shock-after-deadly-shootings-in-pittsburgh/417-608802757
By: Ellie Thornsbury
Here we go again with the un-newsworthiness. A shooting took place in a Pennsylvania synagogue this past Saturday, it was a tragic event killing eleven people and injuring six more. When I first heard about this my heart immediately went out to the victims and their families. However, I was left confused when I checked WHAS's website, noticing that three of their top seven stories were about this event. I am in no way trying to disrespect the victims of this tragedy when I say I have some problems with how WHAS covered it.
Going back to the Seven Yardsticks of Journalism, local relevance is important. A local news station needs to inform the community about problems and events that are important and impactful. A shooting this big is definitely worthy of attention, but I simply don't understand why WHAS felt the need to write three full stories on it. Heather Fountaine wrote an article on how the Louisville Jewish community is reacting to the shooting, Marco Della Cava and Elizabeth Weise wrote about the victims, and Marc Levy and Mark Gillispie wrote about the event itself. Could the five of them not combine the three stories into one? I don't understand how WHAS assigned five members of their team to cover the same story. They could've easily combined the three articles into one, leaving more space on the website for other stories.
The synagogue shooting could make a relevant story if the author explains the impact on our community. But, WHAS missed this opportunity by publishing three stories on the same exact thing.
https://www.whas11.com/article/news/nation-world/police-synagogue-gunman-said-he-wanted-all-jews-to-die/507-608650875
https://www.whas11.com/article/news/nation-world/remembering-the-11-victims-of-the-pittsburgh-synagogue-shooting/417-608847448
https://www.whas11.com/article/news/local/louisvilles-jewish-community-in-shock-after-deadly-shootings-in-pittsburgh/417-608802757
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