MUST NEWS BE NOVEL?

MUST NEWS BE NOVEL? I posted here on an article by Brian Stelter about television coverage of a debate between Obama and Hillary Clinton. The article began, “A serious discussion on pressing national issues may be good for the country. But it isn’t necessarily good television.” Serious discussions of policy by candidates are unappealing to print journalists as well, and journalists have developed various excuses for avoiding them. One excuse is that policy arguments are not “news” unless they are novel. Here is a current example. The New York Times printed an op ed by Obama on his position on Iraq; it rejected a rebuttal piece by McCain. I am not interested in whether the Times was favoring one candidate over another. What I find significant is the standard that the Times applied to both candidates. The op ed page editor of the Times said that “The Obama piece worked for me because it offered new information (it appeared before his speech).” Apparently, if Obama’s speech had occurred a couple days earlier, Obama’s op ed would not have been worthy of publication.