Some of you might have noticed posts from SaskToday's Crime, Cops and Court section popping up on Mercury’s Facebook page and thus on your feed at the end of every day.
Some even turn to our provincial news hub on a regular basis by now not only for Estevan news, but for your news needs in general and also to learn the latest from our most read section.
Crimes, cops and court indeed sees the most traffic on average. Of course, a huge part of this success is due to work by Lisa Joy, a very talented court reporter, an international and national award-winning journalist (and also formerly a licensed private investigator in Alberta), who currently covers what is often pretty unbelievable acts by criminal minds in the north-central part of the province for SaskToday. (If you haven't read her articles, please do so, she is indeed amazing). But there is also another component to this section's popularity.
Back in my university years, one of the professors told us future journalists what was formulated as the rule of three Ss. Quoting some guru of journalism, he said that the popularity of media lies upon the three pillars – sex, death and sensation (which all start with an S in the Russian language).
These three components will always attract attention and guarantee a wide circulation, no matter where you are and who you are writing for.
Sex is pretty obvious; anything related to it, be it a scandal or an advice section, instantly catches attention. By death he meant any kinds of accidents, catastrophes, armed conflicts, and any other risks to people's lives. Sensation is an approach to serving information. Be it a unique provocative leak, stipulation about a hot topic, or something that makes the reader feel scared, sensations cater to people's emotions. Sensations are a go-to for tabloids, which in general bank on all three components, as well as for many social media channels and influencers.
Even if something is an obvious fiction, people still click on it and read it, yielding millions of views and room for making good money through advertisement.
Throughout my years in journalism, working for different media, along with many of my colleagues, I kept trying to swing away from the domination of these topics. We tried writing more positive news and digging for feel-good stories, we put all our talents into talking about something outside sex, sensations and death.
And while there was a response to that, when it came to news, the bad ones always took over the readership. So as a journalist seeking readership growth, you have to pay more attention to all the negative episodes. And then all of a sudden, it looks like the world around has gone unhinged and everything is indeed really bad.
I get that vibe from my grandma. With pain in her voice, she tells me about how scary the world became. There are floods in some regions, and fires in other ones, there are wars and mass shootings, violent outbreaks during protests in some countries and disease outbreaks in others. That's all she gets from news broadcasts.
That's where I hit my professional “the chicken or the egg” dilemma. Are there more issues in the world on average, or does it feel like it because that's all people want to hear? Believe me, there are not that many journalists that sincerely appreciate writing about all the negative news. Most reporters would prefer to look into other topics and story ideas more often than they get to. But we often feel that that's what the readers want, so we end up writing more about crimes and accidents.
Getting back to SaskToday, we are still a young and ambitious project. Nearly two years ago, several smaller websites, which were producing news about our local communities, merged into one provincial news hub. Reporters and editors are still working on the ground, covering community news of all kinds. Just like me and Dave, there are journalists in Weyburn, Yorkton, Outlook, North Battleford as well as Regina and Saskatoon and other locations across Saskatchewan, who are working in their respective communities and then upload everything we do onto SaskToday.ca.
We are still looking for our own development path, and while we have a very wide range of news regularly updated on our website, our "three S" turned into the "three C" with news from police departments, court houses and about any kind of crimes attracting the most attention.
When looking through our feed, even I sometimes start feeling that Saskatchewan seems to be pretty dangerous. But is the province indeed getting unhinged, or are more crimes, cops and court news produced and distributed because people prefer to read them over other topics? Even with about 15 years in journalism, I still don't have an answer. But before you blame media for fearmongering, check what you and those around you read and click on the most.
And yes, to stay up to date on Saskatchewan's "three Cs" and all other provincial news (we put a lot of work into ensuring all the positives make it out there as well), stay with us and keep reading SaskToday.ca.
