Today we began what we believe will be an interesting experiment in observing media priorities. We started by looking at what different newspapers found to be worthy of front page coverage and also the topics of each paper’s editorials. The results might surprise you…but probably not.

Yesterday, Pakistan suffered a serious attack in which at least 33 people have been killed and hundreds more wounded. The attacks targeted a Shi’a procession in Lahore. Lashkar-e-Jhangvi claimed responsibility for the attack almost immediately.

With this recent tragedy still fresh in the nation’s consciousness, we wanted to know what the media companies thought was important today? First, let’s take a look at the front pages of several newspapers:

Judging by column space, the most important story seems to be what a good deal you will get from the media companies’ advertisers. Okay, yes, newspapers do require advertising to keep subscription fees low. But it is worth noting still that The Nation has more advertising than actual reporting on the front page, though Dawn and The News are not far behind.

What’s more interesting, though, is what each newspaper thinks is most important to report on the front page. The Nation has a few stories about the attacks in Lahore, but devotes at least as much space to stories about Supreme Court’s hearings on the 18th Amendment, US-Pakistan strategic talks, NAB, and inflation.

Dawn devotes the majority of its print space to coverage of the terror attack in Lahore, with the next biggest stories being flooding and the Sialkot lynching.

The News devotes about equal space to the Lahore attacks as they do advertising, but the majority of column space is for stories about floods and politics.

Editorial Pages

Editorial pages are where the official position of a publication is printed. The following topics appeared today.

The News

• Sialkot Murders
• 18th Amendment and appointment of judges
• School reading curriculums

Dawn

• Taxes
• Criticism of US treatment of military officers
• Objectives resolution

The Nation

• Criticism of US treatment of military officers
• Oil prices
• Criticism of government handling floods

It’s interesting, I think, that none of these three major newspapers had any editorial condemning the Lahore attacks. Surely they will make some statement at some point, but why was it not a priority? That’s not to say that school reading curriculum and oil prices are not important, but why did the news organizations decide those were more important than making a statement on the killings?

American intellectual Noam Chomsky has spoken for decades about what he calls “manufacturing consent”. He describes the way that major media organizations decide what is worthy of discussion, and that this has an influence on the way that society evolves.

It’s basically an institutional analysis of the major media, what we call a propaganda model. We’re talking primarily about the national media, those media that sort of set a general agenda that others more or less adhere to, to the extent that they even pay much attention to national or international affairs.

Now the elite media are sort of the agenda-setting media. That means The New York Times, The Washington Post, the major television channels, and so on. They set the general framework. Local media more or less adapt to their structure.

And they do this in all sorts of ways: by selection of topics, by distribution of concerns, by emphasis and framing of issues, by filtering of information, by bounding of debate within certain limits. They determine, they select, they shape, they control, they restrict — in order to serve the interests of dominant, elite groups in the society.

Mr Chomsky was, of course, writing about the media in his own country, but the same theory pertains to our media as well. This is not a judgment against the media, but it is something to be aware of. Not only does the content of reporting shape the way people perceive certain issues, but the decision about what is newsworthy is a very powerful part of media. Thus, you should ask yourself – are the media’s priorities my priorities? Or are they different?