Should this Really be in the News? (Media Critique)


On CNN's website the recent news headlines are divided into categories for the viewers connivence.  At a glance they all seem relevant and up to par. If you take a closer look, the articles found under the category "US" often neglect the 10 Elements and the 7 Yardsticks of Journalism. One article being "California man who allegedly stuck dates with the check faces years in prison". The article is about a man named Paul Guadalupe Gonzales, also known had the "Dine-and-Dash Dater". Gonzales used the dating site Bumble to go on dinner dates with women and then ran out of the restaurant when the check came, leaving the women with the bill. On one account the bill was $218 which his date was forced to pay. He is being charged with 11 counts of extortion and 2 counts of attempted extortion in the state of California.  

 Another article under the category "US" is the article "A teen finds a purse with $10,000 inside and returns it". This article is about Rhami Zeini, a 16 year old boy who found a black purse in the middle of the road when he was driving home from school. He opened the purse and was shocked to find $10,000 inside. Rhami then turned it over to the Santa Barbara Sherif's Office. This article along with the previous one is not newsworthy outside of the area where they took place. It is a fluff piece and not hardcore, US news that everyone needs to know. 

Both articles are only newsworthy to the area in which they affect, the state of California, and not the United States as a whole.  These articles are slo peripheral topic, shorting lasting  news stories. This brings up the question of why they are relevant to the people in Columbia, South Carolina or Lansing Michigan. The answer to that question is that they are not relevant because these news story are having little to no effect on the people outside of California. CNN needs to rethink what qualifies to be under the category "US". They need to realize that some people do not want to hear a news/fluff pieces about a story that only impacts a small portion of the United States. 

 Paul Vercammen, author of "California man who allegedly stuck dates with the check faces years in prison" and Janine Mack, author of "A teen finds a purse with $10,000 inside and returns it", both could benefit from adding additional information relating it to other similar stories happening around the country. This would make it newsworthy to more than just the cities in which these stories occurred, reaching a bigger audience.   

To read more about the "Dine-and-Dash Dater" - https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/07/us/california-dine-and-dash-additional-charges/index.html

To read to article about the boy who found the purse- https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/17/us/teen-purse-find-return-trnd/index.html

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