Similar topics often dominate the news. The “News Education Initiative” wants to break through this – and publishes a top ten list of forgotten news once a year.
In the beginning, it was media scientists who used their research to provide evidence of the general feeling that the news in this country and around the world is very similar. Certain topics are popular and are published by all editorial teams. The statistics were clear. But what does that mean and how should it be dealt with?
The scientists asked themselves these questions together with journalists and found what appeared to be a very German answer: In 1997 they founded the “Initiative News Enlightenment” association, or INA for short. However, the idea of the club comes from the USA – “Project Censored” is the name of the model there.
Both clubs have set themselves the goal of bringing a little variety to the news market, for example by offering alternative topics that would also be interesting and worth reporting. The editorial teams should be encouraged to continually question their topic finding and selection.
More constructive news
In Germany, the top ten list of forgotten messages is now published every year. In 2024, so-called phytoremediation will be number one on the list. This is a method of cleaning soils contaminated with heavy metals using certain plants. The plants absorb the heavy metals from the soil and store them. The soil is cleaned and the metals can be recovered from the plants and processed. A very effective and environmentally friendly method, but one that is currently almost unknown to the public.
“With top topic 1, phytoremediation, we are pleased to be able to bring a very constructive topic to public attention,” says Hektor Haarkötter, INA chairman and professor of political communication at the Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences. Topics that offer solutions to problems are less likely to make the news than the problems themselves.
This has something to do with the logic of news discovery. Topics are selected that offer a certain potential for discussion. Many journalists see it as their job to point out problems and grievances. In view of new excitement, there is often no time for positive further developments.
Digital topics in focus
But the top ten list also mainly contains topics that point to certain problems. Second place, for example, deals with the large digital companies. INA’s finding: “The Internet is firmly in the hands of very few monopolists. By far the largest part of the Internet, which is not just German-speaking, is a graveyard: Web offerings other than YouTube, Facebook & Co. receive practically no attention.”
Third place also highlights a problem from the digital world: it is the political influence to which Google Maps is subject. For example, when the map of India is opened in India, all of Kashmir is included. Outside India, the area’s unclear status is marked.
The same thing is being done with Northern Cyprus. In Turkey it is considered an independent republic; outside Turkey, the north belongs to the whole of Cyprus because the status of the supposed republic under international law is not recognized. There are some examples of this around the world.
The INA finds this absolutely newsworthy. “This adoption of political guidelines without comment cements the view that the claims of one’s own country are the undisputed truth and thus impairs the search for compromise and balance,” the press release says. In Germany, however, the phenomenon is largely unknown.
Democratic topic selection
Topics like this are not easy to research. Who in India or Turkey goes online to find out the international legal status of an area on a map? The INA is helped by the way in which the so-called forgotten messages find their way to her: she calls on your website Interested parties are invited to suggest topics that are relevant but appear too little or not at all in German news.
A list is then created from these suggestions and given to students of media seminars at participating universities, who then research the topics: Is what is presented correct? How relevant is it? Those who successfully pass this preliminary test are presented to a jury of media scientists and journalists, who then democratically determine the top ten.
“Such a failure”
These can also be topics that seem banal at first glance. Fourth place deals with the increasing number of potholes in North Rhine-Westphalia. But the broken roads and sidewalks definitely have the potential to overcome the regional excitement threshold, because it’s not just North Rhine-Westphalia that is affected. And the consequences of potholes can be serious – for cyclists, for example.
But no one knows exactly where there are how many potholes, so they are only ever perceived as a problem to a limited extent. They often last for many years because other, larger road damage occurs.
The INA combines its message, which it calls “Such a failure,” with a positive example: In Great Britain, potholes are recorded and monitored centrally, so that it becomes noticeable when the number gets out of hand. Repairs can be planned better this way.
Substitute topics instead of Fundamental criticism
Anyone who reads the top ten list will also find the forgotten tropical disease Noma, the dangers of titanium dioxide in pharmaceuticals, and the underestimated World Social Forum as a counter-proposal to the World Economic Forum in Davos. And the under-promoted crossover kidney donation, in which living people donate kidneys to sick people to whom they are not related. Or the problems of children from families with a migration history, who have to act as mediators between their families and the German – often bureaucratic – environment because state structures are missing.
The topics are very diverse and all interesting. But what distinguishes it from thousands of other topics that are also diverse and interesting and do not find their way into the top ten?
Marlene Nunnendorf, spokeswoman for the INA and employee at the Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences, replies that these are only representative topics that are intended to make it clear what else could be worth reporting. It’s not about telling the editors what they’ve forgotten, but about encouraging them to focus on areas and topics that aren’t on everyone’s lips. Openness to new things and the leisure to research are often lost in the stress of production. This leads to the news being so similar across all media.
But the INA club members are also experts enough to admit that there are constraints that make it difficult for more unusual news. If a radio or television broadcast were only a few minutes long, the question “Ukraine war or phytoremediation?” probably answered with a war in Ukraine.
Suggestion for research
And the top ten are also subject to the problems that newsrooms are familiar with. Some topics are very complex and time-consuming to research. 10th place is called “Alone in the field – suicides in agriculture” and deals with the thesis that farmers are often so overwhelmed due to the ever-deteriorating production and income conditions that a disproportionate number of them suffer from depression and burnout – apparently 4.5 times more common than other professional groups.
However, there are no official figures on this. Only professional associations and industry publications take up the topic. But where does the specific number 4.5 come from – and why should farmers be more burdened than, for example, employees in geriatric care?
Marlene Nunnendorf from the INA says these are the right questions. The top ten also see themselves as a source of inspiration for the editorial teams to take up topics and carry out further research. The most important thing is to keep your curiosity.