A Slice of Life
​ • During the past 24 hours, any number of things have happened in Stockholm, in Sweden, in the world. But, newspapers and TV news have a limited amount of space. Only a few of the things that have happened end up in newspapers and on TV news. The path from "what happened" to the reader/listener is long. Along the way the news must pass many barriers. It must make it past gatekeepers who reject most news stories.
​ • Say a private person or a police officer tells a journalist about something that happened. The journalist writes an article. The newspaper's editor chooses to include it in the newspaper.
​ • Could the article interest others as well? If so, it might get "picked up" by the Swedish news agency TT (Tidningarnas Telegrambyrå).
• Every 24 hours TT receives hundreds of news stories from around Sweden. TT's editors chose which news stories to edit and shorten before they are sent to Swedish newspapers and TV.
​ • Every 24 hours TT also receives thousands of news stories from international news agencies like Reuters (UK), AFP (Agence France-Presse), AP (Associated Press, USA), Al Jazeera (Qatar, which borders on Saudi Arabia) etc. TT's editors choose major news stories as well as unusual news stories for translation into Swedish before sending them to Swedish newspapers and TV.
• People at the newspapers or TV-news choose which news stories to include in the newspaper or TV news. There is space for dozens of news stories.
​ • This is the way it works: TT & other news agencies choose the news which they think will most interest people. Every newspaper and TV news show chooses that which they think will be most interesting. And finally it is the newspaper's reader who decides which articles to read.
â–º Among all that has happened, how is it decided what will end up in the news?
â–º What does a "gatekeeper" do?
â–º What is TT? What does it do?
â–º Two international news agencies are...
â–º Summarize a news story's path from something happening to publication.
â–º Most news agencies, movie production companies, and TV companies are from the same few countries. How is our way of looking at the world influenced? What do you think?
