Just Saying | If a white man bleeds, it leads: this is the sad reality of news judgment
Yonden Lhatoo laments the double standards, in the media and among the public, when the world reacts to terrorist attacks differently – depending on who and where the victims are
“If it bleeds, it leads.” It’s a cynical but effective mantra that we news editors often apply when deciding whether to put a story on the front page.
The trope is so deeply ingrained in the mainstream media’s psyche that reports of bloodshed, death and destruction will always hog the headlines. The only competitor is sex, which, as we all know, sells.
My years in journalism have made me a jaded signatory to this philosophy, but, as desensitised as I may have become, there’s one aspect to it that never ceases to bother me: the fact that it also matters who is bleeding – and that essentially boils down to skin colour – when you decide who should be leading the news.
I would even change that callous catchphrase to “if a white man bleeds, it leads” to reflect the disgraceful reality.
And you can only blame the media so much. After all, newspapers and television stations, in their eternal quest to capture as many “eyeballs” as possible, only reflect the reality of what drives people’s interest.