Marry a Multimillionaire: Soft News for the New Millennium

If there was ever a made-for-the-new-millennium news story, it was the sudden rise and fall of Who Wants to Marry a Multimillionaire?--Fox's effort at TV matchmaking that imploded when the blushing groom turned out to have an embarrassing past. The saga, in all its permutations, bounced from the front page of the New York Times to the covers of Time and Newsweek to the Today show. And why not? The episode featured all the vital elements--culture, lifestyle, morality, and money--of the modern news blockbuster.

Maybe a decade ago, the Multimillionaire fiasco would not have generated such headlines. (Maybe no one would have thought to air such a shameless sideshow then.) But in an era when local TV news focuses on misbehaving pets, when a Newsweek cover touts the success of pro wrestling, and when an invasion of chain-owned restaurants makes page 1 of the Washington Post, it fits right in. For better or worse, in a nation becalmed by peace and prosperity, the mainstream media--fearing for their economic future--are dramatically altering the concept of news.

In his memoir, former New York Times executive editor Max Frankel described his controversial decisions to put "soft" stories about the rise of country music and women's hemlines on page 1 of the paper of record as "my redefinition of news."

In a 1998 report that examined more than six thousand stories in all, the Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ) reported a clear shift away from traditional news topics toward "lifestyle," "celebrity," and "entertainment." The most telling survey statistic is this: From 1987 to 1997, stories about government and foreign affairs dropped by about one-third, and the number of stories dealing with personal health, lifestyle, entertainment, and celebrity nearly doubled. "The data clearly indicates that there have been major shifts in how the news media define the news," the report concluded.

The immediacy of new media, the Internet and cable news, has forced the old media, print and broadcast journalism, to probe the cultural landscape for nuggets buried below the breaking news cycle. Take the newsweeklies. Once expected to put the big events of the week in context, they are now much more invested in capturing the cultural zeitgeist. Recent Time magazine covers have focused on the Pokemon craze, the Harry Potter books, why Americans enjoy risky activities, and how to have an understated New Year's Eve. Newsweek covers explored problems with "tweens" (kids between eight and fourteen), cosmetic surgery, and the battered male psyche.

The same basic instinct that drives the newsweeklies has the nation's most prestigious daily papers trolling for both telling and offbeat features. A look at the Washington Post and the New York Times during a one-week period in February reveals front-page stories on the explosion of helicopter travel in Brazil, the fake fishing trophy industry, teenagers abusing cell phones, and young Japanese women who are deferring marriage in favor of partying.

Local television news, frequently criticized for its lack of nutritional value, doles out large quantities of lighter fare. In its 1999 report examining almost nine thousand stories in nineteen different markets, the PEJ found that nearly 30 percent of those pieces dealt with softer subject matter. That dovetails with the results of a 1998 Rocky Mountain Media Watch survey that examined newscasts at 102 stations and came up with a "fluff index" of 25 percent. The survey singled out several "fluff" classics, such as stories on hair tattoos and beer baths. One recent night in Boston, several stations closed the eleven o'clock news with a bizarre feature about a store in Austria that gave away free clothing to people who showed up nude.

While these stories make inviting targets, much of television's softer side comes in the form of genuine service-oriented "news you can use." Media...