The news cycle of tears

The reporting of news-worthy events evolves. Here I suggest a model for television news reporting that has been increasingly widely adopted. I will explore the model in the context four television outlets, Fox, MSNBC, CNN and the BBC.

The premise on which this model is based is that information is developed in a linear fashion, a straight line function of available resources. If the news-gathering resources are constrained and constant, the rate at which information is acquired is constant and the accumulation of information (the integration of the rate of acquisition) is linear. I posit also that the demand for news falls exponentially over time. In this diagram I suggest a relationship of the form 1/exp(xt) with time, measured in hours and x parameter that characterizes the rate of interest "decay".

The scope for quazi-informed speculation is defined a N_t*(N_t-1) where N is the number of facts available at time t. The zone of speculation is defined at the product of scope and demand. Of course baseless speculation is always possible (and often found) but is not a feature of this model. Here I confine myself to speculation that is at least to some degree rooted in facts.

From the figure it is clear that as we move away from the instant at which the story breaks, the zone of speculation increases. Of course not all news organizations will make use of the space offered; the function represents an outer envelope within which news organization may chose different levels of speculation depending on their business models.

For example, the conservative BBC generally chooses to stay fairly close the axis, waiting for confirmation and corroboration before using limited data to make speculative assumptions.

The business model employed by the more sensational media outlets (Fox for example) is to exploit the envelope to the full before moving on as facts narrow down the speculative domain. By focusing its narrative at the widest part of the envelope for each new story, and then moving on before the speculation is dis-confirmed by additional data it is able to generate the greatest scope for agenda-based reporting. The model is analogous to the rhetorical device "I'm not saying, I'm just asking" as a means to making a point without the need for data. And there can be little doubt that the "tear-drop" mode of the zone of speculation has been increasingly successful.

In the diagram below, for the purposes of illustration I have modeled a lower limit in blue and an upper limit in red. The units might be the the degree is venal self interest.

Fox generally occupies the region near to the upper edge of the envelope while MSNBC takes a position the diametrically opposite to Fox's.  

CNN by contrast has has little in the ways of a political agent to guide and constraint its speculation allowing it to wander more randomly and more widely in the available speculative space.

And the more conservative BBC generally speculates later, and stays closer to the x-axis.

Of course the is a simply a theoretical model; I leave it to others to test it empirically. But at least the model is something worth speculating about...