What is news?

I had put this question to a senior journalist friend of mine and straightforward that he is, he replied with an analogy: "in Mumbai millions travel by local trains everyday most of them start on time and reach back on time, that never becmes news. But if one of them falls from a train and dies, that is news". I must admit, given the brilliant analogy even a child could have understood what news was. And I must admit that unlike other journalists facing the question, my friend had not callously replied "whatever the masses like is news". Nonetheless, i was no more wiser after his reply.

But as they say, there are people who learn from others' experiences and there are fools who learn from their own eperiences. This is how I realised what news was through my own experience.

Just read in the newspaper the other day that Kingfisher Airlines had to part with 15 crores on account of misuse of online payments for tickets. It is a lot of money for an airline that is true to its colours still in red. This unfortunate news was not uncommon among other airlines too. Hence it was newsworthy. Of course, everyone is interested in online payment frauds, online gambling, online pornography and etc. So all the more reason to highlight the darker side of human behaviour.

But the fact that the same airlines in an offline card swipe charged me twice for the same ticket will never become news. Money involved was small, it does not highlight darker side of human character [it was a mere clerical mistake] so it is not newworthy.

That's how I learned what was news.

I stand no chance of recovering my 4,500 Rs from an airline which has paid 15 crores on account of false online transactions. My bad luck