News or opinion?

In the past week the lists of most read stories of pretty much all the major news websites looked almost exactly the same. But wait, isn’t that normal? Big news on one website is probably also big news on another website, so should the most read stories not generally be the same? Yes, of course, but the important difference is the variety. Right now news sites are largely dominated by stories about President-elect Donald Trump, but frankly, that was to be expected. The problem in this case is the lack of actual news in these articles. Most of them are simply opinion pieces disguised as news or developing situations. There is almost no value to be found in them and after reading these articles the reader is left without having gained further knowledge on the matter.

The problem many media outlets were facing is the lack of actual news. News websites depend on a continuous influx of new articles to prevent the front page from becoming stale and deterring their customers, the readers.

Donald Trump getting elected as the President of the United States is without a doubt of great importance but with the lack of new information a story quickly loses its momentum and the interest of the reader. To prevent this from happening new information must be created. Assigning blame for Trumps victory and Clintons defeat seemed to work at the beginning but people quickly realised that it was impossible to condense this complex topic into a simple article. The next phase was speculation about the staff Trump might or might not recruit. At the same time articles were released containing speculations about the possible consequences of actions Donald Trump might or might not take after taking the office, rehashing problems discussed in the weeks and months before the election. The lack of actual news and the overabundance of unbalanced opinions only lead to more frustration for the reader. Only now, a week after the election, actually newsworthy reports are starting to crop up, referring to concrete actions and developments in and around Trumps transition team. Hopefully the news corporations will now be able to focus on the facts and analyse them accordingly.

As long as news media is dominated by speculations and the analysis thereof, no additional value will be created for the reader.