Intended for healthcare professionals

Choice

Making and breaking news

BMJ 2001; 322 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.322.7278.0/a (Published 13 January 2001) Cite this as: BMJ 2001;322:a

If a jumbo jet flies into a mountain and kills 300 people—that's news. But much, even most, news is manufactured in that it isn't new, somebody's pitching the story to achieve his or her own ends, and an editor somewhere has decided to label it news. Because of this uncertainty news editors feel most comfortable when a story is in every paper and most uncomfortable when they alone have a story that others could have run (“If it's news why aren't the others carrying it?”). The BMJ is part of this circus …

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