Sunday, May 31, 2009

And why is this news?

Carnival Fantasy returned to New Orleans yesterday as scheduled. Is that news? A lot of news outlets think it is, because the wire service story got carried by hundreds of outlets.

The reason for the report ostensibly is that it was the end of the cruise from which a 18-year-old went overboard and died while celebrating his graduation from high school. But the article that ran all these places did nothing to update the story. It did not have any new information; it did not have any comments by friends or family disembarking from the ship.

So what was the reason for running the story? Didn't they expect the ship to return? Or was it just to generate some more readership based on a very sad event that is causing misery for the boy's family and friends?