Editing Junk food news

{{short description|Sardonic term for trivial news stories}}
{{Refimprove|date=March 2009}}
{{About|a term for trivia presented in place of journalism|the term 'junk news'|Fake news}}
'''Junk food news''' is a [[sardonic]] term for news stories that deliver "sensationalized, personalized, and homogenized inconsequential [[trivia]]",<ref name=c2001>{{cite book
|title=Censored 2001
|chapter=Junk Food News 1877-2000
|last=Jensen
|first=Carl
|editor-last=Phillips
|editor-first=Peter
|pages=[https://archive.org/details/censored200100pete_0/page/251 251–264]
|year=2001
|publisher=Seven Stories Press
|isbn=978-1-58322-064-1
|chapter-url-access=registration
|chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/censored200100pete_0/page/251
}}</ref>
especially when such stories appear at the expense of serious [[investigative journalism]]. It implies a [[media criticism|criticism]] of the [[mass media]] for disseminating news that, while not very nourishing, is "cheap to produce and profitable for media proprietors."<ref name=c2001/>

==Meaning==
The term ''junk food news'' was first used in print by Carl Jensen in the March 1983 edition of ''[[Penthouse (magazine)|Penthouse]].'' As the leader of [[Project Censored]], he had frequently faulted the media for ignoring important stories. In response, says Jensen, editors claimed that other stories were more important, and bolstered this claim with [[ad hominem]] comments directed against him.
<blockquote>...news editors and directors...argued that the real issue isn't [[censorship]]&mdash;but rather a difference of opinion as to what information is important to publish or broadcast. Editors often point out that there is a finite amount of time and space for news delivery&mdash;about 23 minutes for a half-hour network television evening news program&mdash;and that it's their responsibility to determine which stories are most critical for the public to hear. The critics said I wasn't exploring media censorship but rather I was just another frustrated academic criticizing editorial news judgment.<ref name=c2001/></blockquote>

To give this argument a fair hearing, Jensen decided to conduct a review to determine which stories the media had considered more important. But instead of hard-hitting investigative journalism, what he discovered was the phenomenon that he termed junk food news fell into predictable categories:<ref name=c2001/>

* Brand name news ([[celebrity]] gossip)
* Sex news (exposés and [[sexual titillation]])
* Yo-yo news ([[statistic]]s that change daily, such as [[stock market]] numbers and [[box office]] totals)
* [[Show business]] news (movie openings)
* Latest craze news (brief [[fad]]s)
* [[Anniversary]] news (anniversaries of major events or celebrity deaths)
* [[Sports]] news (sports rumours)
* [[Political]] news (bi-annual coverage of congressional campaign promises)

As the flip side to its annual list of the Top 25 Censored Stories, Project Censored publishes an annual list of the Top 10 Junk Food News stories, compiled by members of the National Organization of News Ombudsmen.

==See also==
{{portal|Journalism}}
{{Div col}}
*{{annotated link|Fake news}}
*{{annotated link|Hot take|aka=Pundit debate and analysis of sports and political news}}
*{{annotated link|Media circus|aka=Media hype}}
*{{annotated link|Media culture}}
*{{annotated link|Sensationalism}}
*{{annotated link|Soft media|aka=soft news}}
{{div col end}}

==References==
{{reflist}}

{{Journalism}}
{{Media manipulation}}
{{Media and human factors}}

[[Category:Criticism of journalism]]
[[Category:Mass media issues]]
[[Category:Tabloid journalism]]

{{Journalism-stub}}