Critique- WHAS 11

http://www.whas11.com/news/local/Lou-man-cheats-Krogers-U-Scan-busted-for-stealing-infant-formula-225351112.html

This article was put under the category of "local news" on the local news' WHAS 11 webpage. The article talked about a man who tried to steal more than a hundred dollars' worth of baby food with his young daughter with him. This violated one of the 7 basic yardsticks of journalism, which is newsworthiness. Under that yardstick, it states that newsworthiness is based on two factors- whether the topic is core or peripheral and whether the story is "likely to have a direct and lasting (6 months or more) informational impact on a wide audience". Although the topic does fall under the core topics (crime), but it does not have a direct or lasting informational impact on more then 10,000 people since this topic does not affect many (except for maybe the store he tried to steal from). Unless the man was stealing from several stores and could be coming to a store near you, it is not important or newsworthy.

This also violated one of the Nine Core Principles of Journalism: Make the important interesting. The article and topic was neither interesting or important or relevant because they caught the man who was stealing and charged him with theft. At the very least, the reporter who wrote about this could have interviewed the people who were standing near this man to ask them what they saw or if he seemed suspicious or not.