The phrase “if it bleeds, it leads” refers to the likelihood that a media outlet (especially TV) will give a news story on death, violence or crime the most visibility and attention. In the past, these stories were meant to capture the attention of the reader/listener/viewer, often through fear.
These days, due to shrinking newsrooms, it seems these stories are primarily acting as filler. Without enough reporters to cover actual news, many local media outlets are using police reports (and AP stories) to fill print space or airtime.
For example, a local daily newspaper often will fill most of the “front page” of its app with crime stories. Consequently, the paper is missing out on news in higher education, business, sports and local government that other media are covering, but as mentioned, the lack of staff is a contributing factor.
Local radio stations compound this problem when they employ “rip-and-read,” which means their staff simply take the headlines from the local newspaper and read them on air instead of gathering their own news.
Now comes the chicken or egg problem. People don’t want to pay for a subscription to a media outlet when there’s not enough content generated, and marketers don’t want to purchase ads when there aren’t enough readers/listeners/viewers. However, these media outlets need revenue from subscriptions and ads so that they can cover more news.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem like there’s an easy or obvious solution to these challenges. What’s clear is that we need media outlets to have the courage not to heavily rely on police reports, especially at the expense of “real news.”