Junk food news

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Junk food news refers to news stories that sensationalize, personalize or homogenize relatively inconsequential trivia in the mass media. It is a sardonic phrase which has the same meaning as journalistic noise. Typically, "junk food news" can be said to fall into one or more of these categories:

  • Brand name news (Stories about brand-name products, such as "New Coke")
  • Sexual titillation (Celebrity pregnancies, unusual sexual affairs and crimes)
  • 'Yo-yo news' (statistics that change daily, such as stock market numbers and movie box office totals)
  • Showbusiness news (box office opening news)
  • Latest craze news (Brief fads such as Furby, Segway)
  • Celebrity news (Celebrity gossip)
  • Anniversary news (Anniversary of a major event or celebrity death)
  • Sports news (sports rumours and gossip)
  • Political junk news

The term "junk food news" suggests an unflattering similarity in quality of some stories selected by news editors and junk food (poor quality food stuffs). It was first used in print by Carl Jensen in the March 1983 edition of Penthouse. The term evolved from response to criticism of Project Censored by news directors and editors who argued that the real issue wasn't censorship - rather a difference of opinion as to what information is important to publish or broadcast. Some critics tried to bolster this view with ad hominem comments about Carl Jensen. They said that he wasn't exploring media censorship, rather he was just another frustrated academic criticizing editorial news judgement.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../j/u/n/Junk_food_news.html"
Advanced Search
Included Web Search Engines


Safe Search

close

Top Matching Results

Occasionally Search.com will highlight specialized results that are based on the context of your query. Examples of specialized results include specific links to news, images, or video.

Top Matching Results may highlight information from other Search.com pages, content from the CNET Network of sites, or third party content. The listings are based purely on relevance. Search.com does not receive payment for listings in this section but our partners that provide this data may get paid for listing these products.

Sponsored Links

This section contains paid listings which have been purchased by companies that want to have their sites appear for specific search terms and related content. These listings are administered, sorted and maintained by a third party and are not endorsed by Search.com.

Search Results

Search.com sends your search query to several search engines at one time and integrates the results into one list which has been sorted by relevance using Search.com's proprietary algorithm. You can customize the list of search engines included in your metasearch from the preferences.

The search engines that are used in your metasearch may allow companies to pay to have their Web sites included within the results. To view the Paid Inclusion policy for a specific search engine, please visit their Web site. Search.com does not accept payment or share revenue with any search engine partner for listings in this section.