News. It’s an important part of life and all news. But today, the New Hampshire Department of Health and Welfare issued a news brief, or news release, about the results of a recent investigation into a hepatitis treatment center. The release stated:
Sentence: “A news agency reported that the state medical examiner’s office determined that the public’s safety was not affected by the lack of effective management at a hepatitis treatment center.” In other words, this news agency reported that there were no safety concerns related to the drugs or the management issues. Apparently, the entire country learned from this one story and decided to take stock in English news agencies, reporting accordingly, instead of always relying on news agencies which translate for their respective countries.
The problem is, news agencies have a business to do, and they are not usually the kind of organization which specializes in news. They are more interested in producing news and breaking stories which they can sell to their advertisers, who are the only ones who can really benefit from news like this. This is not to say that news agencies don’t report news that has global significance or importance. They do – but they have very little room to specialize in certain areas of the news. They need to stick to the stuff which their advertisers want them to report.