Every August news readers are treated to media mayhem that since 1891 has been dubbed ‘silly season.’
As the governments, courts and national administration take summer holidays the scheduled flow of political and courts news is interrupted. But most national news media does not shrink in size and silly season means there are extra spaces and airtime to fill. Surveys, pseudo-science and weather watching suddenly rise up the news values hierarchy and some have even noted more relaxed journalistic interviewing styles.
Newspapers run stories that at any other time of the years would be too far down the news values hierarchy to get a look-in leaving bemused readers occasionally asking, “Is this news?” But in the absence of the dependable flow from official sources attention turns to the other scourges in our society such as arrogant seagulls which kept much of the Irish media occupied during the 2014 season.
Ireland and UK are not the only countries to suffer silly season, the Germans have ‘Sommerloch’, in Sweeden, ‘nyhetstorka’ and France, Poland, Denmark all have similar (somewhat) affectionate terms for it.
So while the reading public occasionally roll their eyes, behind the news desk the routine is disrupted with the loss of a constant supply of serious sources. Some think silly season is limited to local news, it is occasionally used as a dig at other reporters, while others have embraced it for what it is, tongue firmly in cheek.
So what should we make of silly season?
It’s not as bad as it sounds. In fact, it has yet to be quantified in Ireland or the UK. Even the Newspapers Handbook, an entry point for journalism studies refers to it only as ‘supposed’. It is not definitive that there is an increase in the numbers of more frivolous news articles, it may also be that in the absence of politics and courts news, are attention is drawn to more frivolous stories.
But even in the absence of hard data anyone who has worked in a newsroom plans for the summer loss of parliamentary and court reports as well as prepares for summer holidays making less commentators available. News media do not lose its overall character and hard news still leads the day.
In general, light-hearted news peppers the hard news in daily media, it operates as an antidote. And not all news is negative, an event just has to deviate from the norm, good or bad, to qualify. The key is not trying to make silly news serious, but to take it as it is. Seagulls stealing lunches should not be met with the same outrage as political misconduct, this is when silly season gets really silly.
But it is what it is, the government take and break, as do the courts and you cannot report on the institutions that are not operating. And yes, somewhere in this lacuna stories about thieving seagulls seem to get more traction than they normally would.
Critics of silly season say it highlights the degree of reliance on official news sources. Examples of soft news stories are perceived as the loss of basic journalistic skills to self-generate hard news or worse regarded as ignoring the opportunity to source alternative viewpoints on more serious issues.
But without any institutional or structural changes that will bring this 200 year old supposed season to an end, silly season whether real or imagined, is here to stay.
