Our Top Story Is ...

For each edition of a daily newspaper, the editors carefully select a single story to appear toward the top of page one, with a prominent headline. The "top story" says a lot about the standards of the editors and managers of a newspaper, and their concept of what will "sell." To learn more about editorial selection and management priorities at the Seattle Times, we undertook a study of their top stories for 1997. After tabulating the results, we assigned each story to one or more categories. Typical categories were: Boeing, stadiums, celebrities, politics, etc.

The study shows that the dictum "if it bleeds, it leads" often applies to the Times. About 15% (more than one per week) of all top stories had violent death as a major theme. These include stories of local murders, terrorist incidents, and the O.J. Simpson and Timothy McVeigh trials. Also in this "violent death" category were three consecutive top stories devoted to the Heaven's Gate cult, culminating in: "Some cult members had been castrated," with the sub-headline "Brother of actress on 'Star Trek' was among 39 suicides." This, from the paper that nine days later won two Pulitzers (and made sure we knew about it, by making it the top story.)

An additional 8% of top stories covered deaths by other causes: natural disasters, plane crashes, etc. 2% were concerned with celebrities who died by natural causes. Thus, all together, 25% of the top stories were about death. When we added in "mayhem" stories about natural disasters, crashes, and other violence with no fatalities, the total rose to 30%.

Including repetitions, a total of 70 personal names were featured in 1997's headlines. Just seven of those names belonged to women. Among names of white adults, 19% were those of convicted criminals or violent-crime suspects, as opposed to 38% for nonwhites. Celebrities were the subject of some 6% of top stories. Subjects included Princess Diana, O.J. Simpson, and the murder of Ennis Cosby.

In their book "Wizards of Media Oz", Norman Solomon and Jeff Cohen write: "...worship of the rich has a way of accompanying denigration of the poor. If having plenty of money makes one person important, then having no money makes another person unimportant." This is borne out by contrasting the coverage given to Princess Diana (five top stories) with that of lower- or middle-class women selected for top stories, including: a hit-and-run driver, an au pair accused of murder, and a mother accused of gross neglect. For women, if you're not rich, you've got one path to the headlines-- commit a terrible crime.

5% of all top stories for 1997 focused explicitly on Boeing: stories about profits, mergers, deals with airlines, etc. Crashes of Boeing aircraft and safety hearings made up another 2%--perhaps because of the impact on profitability. An additional 2% were about Boeing competitors or their planes. All told, 10% of top headlines focused on aircraft or the aircraft industry. Boeing's plans for outsourcing didn't receive top story treatment.

2% of the top stories dealt with a gain or loss in the stock market. Although many middle-class people invest in stocks via 401K plans, their ability to respond to short-term changes is limited. Such news is of more concern to wealthy speculators. By making this a centerpiece of its economic reporting, the Times encourages us to adopt the same attitudes held in corporate boardrooms, where ethics are subjugated to short-term profit--an attitude that contributes to the instability of the stock market itself.

Whereas corporate news (excluding the stock market) was the subject on 46 days, labor issues were addressed on just 12. Two of these dealt with drops in the unemployment rate. Of the remaining 10, five had overtones distinctly critical of unions. If one searched for a top headline showing a positive side to the labor movement, it would have been in vain.

International news in general was slighted. Although 48 top stories had an international component, 26 of these were about plane crashes, fires, terrorism, Boeing deals, and celebrity deaths. Of the remaining 22, five dealt with Governor Locke's trip to China--and his goal of securing a big order for Boeing.

On the positive side, the Times deserves credit for its attention to the occasional serious issue. From time to time a top story would appear on such matters as the use of hazardous wastes in fertilizer or inequities in education. The problem is that such stories were rare.

It's true that a newspaper's top story constitutes only a fraction of the whole. But it's what grabs our attention-- presumably by putting the paper's best face forward. The Times should do some soul-searching over its choice of top story, and how that impacts its reputation for investigation, credibility, and seriousness. If its top stories for 1997 truly reflect the content of the whole paper, then there isn't much news inside "Washington's Largest Newspaper."

Media Watch is written every two weeks by members of the Media Watch collective, a local group monitoring Seattle news media. Our next meeting will be Monday, Jan. 26 at 6:00 PM, 3 floor, Univ. Baptist Church (4554 12 Ave. NE in Seattle). For info or to get involved, e-mail mediawatch@u.washington.edu or call 206-632-1656.