Quote of the Day: Deciding What's News (Hint: Social Media)

Kelly McBride, an expert on media ethics at the Poynter Institute, said she saw no evidence of any cover-up, simply confusion by news editors over whether the story merited national attention. “One of the ways the news media knows how to cover a story these days is because of the attention in social media,” Ms. McBride said. “That’s how people judge whether there’s an appetite for a story.”

--NYTimes this a.m. (here) in a story about the coverage of a trial of an abortion doctor in Philadelphia