Blah, Blah, News, Blah

It’s titled news but it usually isn’t…

Whenever I take a look at my newsfeed, I quickly skim the excerpts and come to the conclusion that there actually is nothing of importance. And again, as in the beginning of the semester, I ask myself how I could possibly judge what’s important and what is not. Who am I to know this?

Well, at least I know a little and I now am more aware of what matters to news papers/agencies than ever before but when I sit in front of the TV, I feel like I still don’t understand anything.

I was watching the latest news of what was happening in Europe and I was stunned: There was a report on a Bavarian minority living in Italy. The so called Tzimbar. They are still trying to keep their German dialect alive although they are a German enclave on Italian ground. More and more people are leaving the small communities that are left and thus fewer and fewer people (especially children) live, learn or teach this dialect.

Honestly, I enjoyed watching this, laying on my sofa, having nothing to do. But I wondered. I wondered why I get to know that? Why would I even care? It’s not like there was a Tzimbardian charity I could support to save it. They were simply reporting on it. But why? It’s not one of those cases where you already have all the footage. It’s not a serious crisis that affects Germany. It’s politically irrelevant and it has an impact on hardly a thousand people. And not even one that is threatening their existence. It only threatens the continuation of their dialect.

I thought about what else made news important so that a TV channel decides to report on this, but I really don’t get it. I don’t know why I should care and how this should be profitable.

How ruthlessly calculated are news?

I was stuck with wondering for a while. Is this because of the famous summer slump? But there is the European Championship going on. Its not like there was nothing to talk about. There were attacks in Baghdad. People lost their lives, not only their language. Why was this not mentioned? Is this format strictly limited to Europe and therefore they will not inform about terrorism in Iraq?

I eventually thought that maybe there simply was a reporter who — during his last trip to Itlay — was moved by the story and decided to share it. Simply to move people. But who are those people. Who is the audience of this program? It’s mainly elderly people. And elderly people (especially where I come form) always seem to worry about their dialects dying out. So maybe it’s not only sharing compassion but again profitable? Maybe I wasn’t aware of the target group…