"News of the world", by Erik Pevernagie (100 x 100 cm) Oil on canvas}

In the mass media information must be newsworthy. The news must cover current events or recently changed situations.

Newspapers and broadcasts want not only to supply the news. They want to be in the news. They want to be the news. They want their readers to be excited: not by soft news, but by hard news, by breaking news. They want to catch their attention by newsworthiness and interestingness. They want to be an antidote to slogans like “No news is good news ». They don’t need quasi-news or unnews. They need scoops.

Sometimes the dead tree media create major troubles by making illegal incursions in the field of privacy. Accuracy of facts is another problem in their journalistic operations. Double checking events is often forgotten. Those who learn from their mistakes apply double-double or triple checking.

When trying to get their information, some apparently don’t respect the deontological rules. In order to break the news and sell more copies they present special themes as crime, sensation, vice, gossip, tittle-tattle, rumors and scandal.

In exposing slight sexual misconducts, drug use or criminal acts of national or local celebrities, “The World of the News” used insiders and under cover journalists to supply photographic substantiation, and phone hacking in current police investigations.

Phenomenon: “The World of the News” crime, gossip, scandal.

Factual starting point of the picture: Person reading “The World of the News”