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Not a journalist but work for a very large news organisation and spend a lot of time explaining how the news works to people so it's something I've had some practice at :)
Absolutely agree and the output of news organisations is driven by both client demand and newsworthiness.
Putting aside the commercial factors though, I would still argue that given the history and who was sitting on the bench that Taj Mahal MkII was a more newsworthy event than yet another austerity march with no influential/powerful people involved which wasn't going to affect anything. Also like it or not Will and his wife sitting on a bench is a global story - a relatively inconsequential anti-austerity march in London isn't.
It's quite depressing really isn't it? This is why nearly all seasoned hacks are miserable sods ;)
Fox-
In the context of media/client interest, I would agree. When people are poring over our history in 50-100 years time, though, I think it'll be austerity they're reading about.
I guess I don't equate demand with worthiness; 'importance' is not necessarily driven by what's popular, in my view, even if on a commercial level it is.
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Doesn't this reading of what is "newsworthy" ignore that the news not only reports on events but informs public perceptions of them.
Surely if the mainstream media chose to narrativise a series of international anti-austerity protests as an important part of a wider anti-establishment movement then people would be more likely to take it seriously. It's a bit circular to say that a protest isn't newsworthy because it didn't achieve anything.
The_Kindness_of_Trees
spiderpie
You are defining newsworthy thus:
"...a person, thing, or event considered as a choice subject for journalistic treatment; newsworthy material."
I am guessing you are a journalist (my apologies if you made that obvious somewhere along the line) but there's a difference between being 'newsworthy' and 'commercially viable', to which I am sure you will agree. Just because loads of people want to see pictures of members of the Royal Family sitting on a bench doesn't make it any more newsworthy than an austerity march, in the sense that many of us would perceive the term 'newsworthy'. I don't agree that just because there have been loads of these marches they become less newsworthy. Surely the sheer number suggests that the matter is being taken very seriously and continues to be newsworthy. And the sight of two chumps sitting on a bench really shouldn't be worthy of news at all (although I understand why it is).
Interesting that you use the word 'clients' to describe the subscribers to news....