Jerry Seinfeld once stated in an episode of his hit television show Seinfeld, "It's amazing that the amount of news that happens in the world every day always just exactly fits the newspaper."

As Seinfeld correctly points out, the news industry has always been able to manipulate the content of the news. Newspapers and magazines determine what makes the daily or weekly cut, as well as determining priority within a particular issue.

The same holds true with the modern forms of news. Television stations, websites and blogs place priority on some stories over others as well as determining how to deliver that content via video, articles, sound bytes and more.

The question, however, is how do media organizations determine priority of stories?

In an ideal world, the answer is strictly based on which story is objectively more important. Precedence should be given to stories that are essential to the community it is appealing towards. And yet, as of Sunday afternoon, CNN's website gave higher priority to the popular quarterback Tim Tebow being cut by the New England Patriots, as well as a feature on summer movie failures, over the verdict coming in about a gang rape of a student, by students. Under what determining process could CNN's editorial staff possibly have considered a glorified backup football player to be more important than the verdict of a serious crime?

The answer lies in the winter television season of 1979-80.
CBS had been piloting a new news program entitled 60 minutes. The ratings expectations were low-after all, news programming never turned a profit. They only continued to exist because of the Radio Act of 1927, which legally mandated radio, and eventually TV, to have some form of news programming. Yet, something miraculous happened: 60 Minutes turned a profit.

After further investigation, the higher ratings and subsequent profit were attributed to two main factors. First and foremost, Dan Rather was brought on to host the show. With his good looks, fashionable attire and charming personality, advertisers' favorite clientele-middle-aged women-were attracted to the show.

Secondly, stories such as live reporting from Tehran on the Iran hostage crisis were, for lack of a better word, entertaining. CBS discovered that by making the legally mandated news segments entertaining, they could actually swing a profit on what was previously a ratings black hole.

This news-as-entertainment model that was discovered by CBS has been adapted by virtually every private news entity in this country.

Take the Trayvon Martin story.

A tremendous tragedy occurred on that fateful day last February, when a teenage boy was killed. The arrest and subsequent trial of George Zimmerman continued until the verdict was reached on Saturday, July 13. When news broke of the verdict, I immediately turned my TV to CNN. Naturally a story of this magnitude about a controversial state law, with the apparent racial implications that it had, was the top story for the day. And the next day. And the next.

But then on July 18, five days after the Martin verdict had been reached, another major story broke: the municipality of Detroit had declared bankruptcy.

To date, Detroit is the largest city to ever declare bankruptcy in the United States. Millions would be affected; pensions that hundreds of thousands of people rely on instantly became uncertain. Hundreds of millions of dollars of debt, money owed to other banks and lenders, would now have to be fought over in bankruptcy court. Like the Martin verdict, a story of this magnitude would be the top story on all forms of news media ... and yet Pierce Morgan in the primetime 9 p.m. slot on CNN interviewed a friend of Trayvon, and only after briefly interviewed an economist in the last few minutes of the show. MSNBC's website's top story continued to be fallout from the verdict.

In the privatized market that is modern journalism in America, stories are not prioritized by importance; they are prioritized by potential viewership. At the end of the day, news outlets are businesses with bottom lines to meet. Stories must be entertaining as much as they are news. The Trayvon Martin verdict was a story that drives viewership; people care about the racial implications and tune in for the supposed controversy. A boring story about the economic downturn of a city, no matter how important, simply does not attract the same ratings. Day five of the Martin verdict coverage therefore got priority over Detroit's bankruptcy. News outlets monopolized a tragedy that gained national limelight in order to gain a greater audience.

This issue is even further magnified by the lack of attention the younger generation gives toward traditional forms of news. A 2012 poll conducted by the Pew Research Center showed that the amount of people aged 18 to 29 that either read or watch the news has fallen 15 percent since 2006. Another poll conducted last year by this paper concluded that 74 percent of Brandeis students use social media to get their news while only 45 percent and 21 percent get their news from CNN and MSNBC, respectively. Media outlets must keep their news segments entertaining; otherwise they risk even further losing their audiences.

It's not all bad, though. After all, entertaining stories pay for the important ones. The primetime dollars that advertisers spend on shows with large audiences pay for live coverage of the Egypt riots from Cairo. We as readers and watchers must intake everything with a grain of salt. CNN's priority is not to educate the public; it's to keep them from changing the channel.
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