THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, December 3, 1995 TAG: 9512020016
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: LYNN FEIGENBAUM
LENGTH: Medium: 86 lines
How time flies. It was only one year ago that O.J. Simpson's arrest earned him the status of (NU)1 Junk Food News Story.
Runners-up were Tonya Harding, Roseanne, Michael Jackson & Lisa Marie Presley, the British royals and the Bobbitts.
Yes, 1994 was ``yet another vintage year for Junk Food News,'' wrote Carl Jensen, the man who compiles the list of nominees.
Jensen is a professor at Sonoma State University in California and director of Project Censored, a research program that investigates news media censorship.
Heavy stuff. The junk news is, I think, his comic relief. Each year, Jensen asks newspaper ombudsmen to vote on the top 10 Junk Food Stories of the year. In turn, I'd like to hear your choices for 1995.
So please be a part of junk-news history and give me your selections.
The choices listed below come from an even longer list provided by Jensen. One item I found inappropriate - the pope's U.S. visit - so I exercised my own powers of censorship and left it out.
Just what is ``junk food news'' anyway?
Jensen defines it as ``the sensationalized, personalized and homogenized inconsequential trivia served up in abundance by the nation's media.'' That takes in a lot of material. Maybe half of what you see and hear in the news every day.
But ask an editor why we run this stuff, and you'll probably be told, ``Because that's what the public wants.'' And the editor may be right.
TV ratings hit the stratosphere the day Simpson was pursued down a California highway by the police.
My own personal favorite O.J. story surfaced back in May. That's when the Times-Georgian, a newspaper with 11,217 subscribers in Carrollton, Ga., announced on its front page that it would no longer run any more news about the ``trial of the century.''
The result: the paper got 200 supportive letters and 10 new subscribers. Definitely a lesson in junk-food avoidance.
How time flies. It was only one year ago that O.J. Simpson's arrest earned him the status of (NU)1 Junk Food News Story.
Runners-up were Tonya Harding, Roseanne, Michael Jackson & Lisa Marie Presley, the British royals and the Bobbitts.
Yes, 1994 was ``yet another vintage year for Junk Food News,'' wrote Carl Jensen, the man who compiles the list of nominees.
Jensen is a professor at Sonoma State University in California and director of Project Censored, a research program that investigates news media censorship.
Heavy stuff. The junk news is, I think, his comic relief. Each year, Jensen asks newspaper ombudsmen to vote on the top 10 Junk Food Stories of the year. In turn, I'd like to hear your choices for 1995.
So please be a part of junk-news history and give me your selections.
The choices listed below come from an even longer list provided by Jensen. One item I found inappropriate - the pope's U.S. visit - so I exercised my own powers of censorship and left it out.
A couple of others I cut for space purposes, like ``Bryant Gumbel's New Hair Do.'' Frankly, I have no idea what Gumbel has been doing to his coiffure, which worries me. Am I losing touch with pop culture?
More frightening is the fact that I DO recognize most of the names and issues. Am I a junk news addict? And
Just what is ``junk food news'' anyway?
Jensen defines it as ``the sensationalized, personalized and homogenized inconsequential trivia served up in abundance by the nation's media.'' That takes in a lot of material. Maybe half of what you see and hear in the news every day.
But ask an editor why we run this stuff, and you'll probably be told, ``Because that's what the public wants.'' And the editor may be right.
TV ratings hit the stratosphere the day Simpson was pursued down a California highway by the police.
My own personal favorite O.J. story surfaced back in May. That's when the Times-Georgian, a newspaper with 11,217 subscribers in Carrollton, Ga., announced on its front page that it would no longer run any more news about the ``trial of the century.''
The result: the paper got 200 supportive letters and 10 new subscribers. Definitely a lesson in junk-food avoidance. ILLUSTRATION: Graphic
BALLOT FOR OVERRATED STORIES OF '95
[For complete graphic, please see microfilm]
by CNB