Wednesday, October 7, 2009

The Scoop On The Poop: Is It News?

THE WHITE HOUSE is denying that first dog Bo pooped on Air Force One.

The Wall Street Journal reports that an anonymous source said, "You can imagine the horror on board when they discovered what it had done."

Read the story. Is it news?

(Photo by the Associated Press)

17 comments:

Luis Crespo said...

This is not news. Because I don't care. And it's disgusting.

Don Hoegg said...

Well put, Luis.

Journalists need to stop being distracted by cutesy stories like this and start asking the WH real questions. When is Guantanamo Bay going to be closed? What of Obama's promise to repeal "don't ask, don't tell"? Why are they continuing Bush-era surveillance techniques? Why have minimum MPG ratings been prescribed to increase to only 35MPG by 2016?? If media becomes complacent, nothing will change.

William Carlson said...

The link is dead in the article, just an FYI, but I looked it up via Google. Who cares if the president's dog takes a dump? This isn't news. The problem is that if someone is willing to read this garbage it will be produced. It is no different than articles about celebrities and how much they drank at a night club or what breed of dog they purchased. Put a diaper on the dog and tackle some real issues.

Geo said...

The broken link has been amended! Sorry!

- George
(the teacher who chuckled when reading the story, then furrowed his brow)

Anne Fogarty said...

This isn't news, it seems more like tabloid fodder. This would be on par with those ridiculous, obviously fabricated stories you see at the grocery store checkout about celebrity relationships and weight problems. It's sad that the white house has to deny this kind of "allegation" if you'd call it that. Why does the media want to stir something up about the friggin' dog?

Michelle Zei said...

i agree this isn't news but it does distract from information that would be considered news and have more relevance and importance for citizens such as violence in Afghanistan.

Don Hoegg said...

I;m not sure how much relevance this holds, Michelle, but your comment gave me a vivid flashback of a Hunter Thompson article I read a few years back(not long before he died) in which he "quoted" LBJ as saying:


"Of course it's not true! But let's make the bastard deny it!"

Mike Costanza said...

Dogs poop all the time. Sometimes they poop where they're not supposed to. They're dogs. Duh. This is really not news.

I'm all for light-hearted news stories. Without them, journalism would be pretty grim. But this is a little much.

Lisa Jiang said...

This is definitely not newsworthy. It's irrelevant and not important. The public does not need to know when and where a dog poops.

NewsNut said...

It's a journalists duty to provide the public with news. Though some have different views of what constitutes as news. The issue is priority and investment into stories that may not be as informative than others. I believe that journalists as of late have are looking for stories that may get them attention rather than inform the public.

Wafai Dias said...

No, it's not new because it doesn't fit the newsworthiness criteria.

Dannaly Sam said...

Some people may find this as news, but I don't think it is. It's more of a National Enquirer sort of article (tabloid) and barely fits into the newsworthiness criteria. The dog is famous because it's Obama's dog, but other than that, the dog does not have any relevance or importance to me.

Anonymous said...

FELICIA TOPSALE SAYS............... I think the story is amuzing. It is the type of thing people like to read to lift their spirits. If it happened or not really doesn't matter to me.

Christine A. Killion said...

Seriously? Everybody poops. Get over it. And stop wasting time with stupid stories. It mocks more serious issues and implies that a dog is more important than people and their stories that SHOULD be covered and arn't. I think it's stupid that the media covers these "happy" stories. You can have an optimistic story without it being trivial. Cover a story about an individual making a positive difference in their community instead. This story is a waste of time.

Floc said...

news according to me--no, though oddly enough I was intrigued by the story.

news according to newsworthinessc criteria--yes. I thought of the "unusual" category, even though the only thing unusual about it is that the story was actually covered.

so you know what, I change my mind haha it's not really newsworthy. If it comes close to anything it's the human interest factor. In a way I guess it's human interest because people can relate to Obama. He walks his dog just like everyone else, makes him more human. Still, a waste of time and paper, really only good for a light-hearted break with all the heavy news.

Steph Ferretti said...

This is not newsworthy. No one cares about a dog going to the bathroom, no matter where it is and who's dog it is. It is irrelevant and there is so many more important things going on in the world today that we should be focused on.

ftk said...

The journalists on this story just wanted to add humor to that day's "boring news". But stories should be balanced and everyone does not want to hear hard news