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'Tragedy Porn' Drags Down News Sources

Online outlets mull pay models, putting a price on sensational stories

By Matt Cantor,  Newser Staff

Posted Sep 7, 2009 2:21 PM CDT

(Newser) – Word is that newspapers will soon start charging for online news—but no one’s quite sure what it’s worth. Take a story like the Jaycee Dugard kidnapping: It’s “tragedy porn” that “neither informs nor enlightens. It merely titillates,” writes Simon Dumenco for Advertising Age. “It's an extreme case, sure,” he notes, but infotainment seems to be a growing proportion of the news. Are we willing to pay for it?

“It's a deep irony that the we're-going-to-charge-for-news movement is being led, in part,” by Rupert Murdoch, who’s “done perhaps the most to pornify the news in the past few decades”  with “lurid and sensational” stories—not to mention the topless models in Murdoch's British papers, Dumenco writes. The bad news for Murdoch: the porn industry itself is struggling to compete with free alternatives.

This undated image provided Thursday Sept. 3, 2009 by the Dugard family shows recently recovered kidnap victim Jaycee Dugard as a child.
This undated image provided Thursday Sept. 3, 2009 by the Dugard family shows recently recovered kidnap victim Jaycee Dugard as a child.   (AP Photo/courtesy of Dugard family)
Michael Jackson provided more tragedy porn this summer.
Michael Jackson provided more "tragedy porn" this summer.   (AP Photo/Michael A. Mariant)
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The Garrido story has essentially zero value in my life. In fact, I'm frustrated by how compelling it is, how much time I've already spent reading about the story, because there's absolutely nothing to be gained from it. - Simon Dumenco

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COMMENTS
Showing 3 of 24 comments
Mad
Sep 8, 2009 12:56 PM CDT
Why do republicans hate hearing from the international community? Why does that shame them?
riffran
Sep 8, 2009 10:14 AM CDT
Well Libertyman...they still haven't explained the ratings...but they sure attacked YOU for pointing them out...thumbs up dude, plus iv'e noticed EVERY time there is a Beck articlethe average comment number is over 40 or so, the last one was 90 something...but yet the Conservative talk shows (all them top 10 by the way, and the libs? none in the top 10) are *ahem * fading out and going away...Whatever you libs have to tell each other...lol
Fig-Neutron
Sep 8, 2009 7:19 AM CDT
One dollar per Newser comment.

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