Created by
Eric Posner
In this world of round the clock news, the television networks and their digital counterparts spend a tremendous amount of their resources in manpower, equipment and money to get what they believe is newsworthy on to the public. With all that coverage they still seem to tell part of the story.
When Buffalo, New York received 76 inches of snow in a day it set a new record. News organizations ran to the scene and the information stream was covered in pictures of massive amounts of snow. While this is news there is more to the story. In time, Buffalo will dig itself out and life will return to normal but chances are good we can only assume that because by then another story will be unfolding somewhere and that;s the one the news organizations will be talking about then.
When the world focused on the Ethiopian famine of 1985 the news services filled the airwaves with thousands of stories about those who were affected, had their lives destroyed and sought shelter in refugee camps. Only one news story was shown regarding a family that recovered from the famine and went home. NBC was there as they returned to their home and found there was a life to rebuild.
The same holds true for Lac Megantic and the Alberta floods of 2013.
This is the plight of today’s news. In television, the thirst for ratings tends to see them cover what is topical and current and they cover it in short sound bites and as quickly as possible. In the digital world, first to tweet or report is much more important than telling the whole story. For them, the facts never seem to get in the way of a meaty “fifteen minutes of fame.” Regardless of the medium, when the “value” of that story is spent they move on to the next story. They have the resources to bring to light and make high profile news out of these “seven day wonders,” but what happens to these “seven day wonders” on The 8th Day?
The Eighth Day is a current affairs program which follows up on these headline newsmakers and closes the book on their story. This program will revisit the story as it was reported and add an originally produced follow-up or conclusion to the headlines. Depending on the complexity of the story there could be as many as three stories profiled per episode or as few as one.
Possible stories could include:
- Brexit
- The 2020(2021)/2022 Olympics
- Chris Hadfield
- Swine Flu
- George Floyd Shooting
- The 2006 Toronto Terrorism Plot
- January 6th, Storming the Capitol
- Same Sex Marriage Legalized
- US and Cuba restore diplomatic ties
- The Westray Mine Disaster
- The Chilean Mine Rescue
- James Webb Telescope
- The Death of Queen Elizabeth
- Rodney King and the LA Riots
- Memtsov and Navalny killings in Russia
- SARS/COVID
- The Balkan genocide
- 40+ years with AIDS
- Watergate 40+ years later
- The legacy of Pearsonian peacekeeping
- Malaysian Airlines flight MH370
These are only some of the stories that could be revisited. Local areas may have very important stories that played out and can also be revisited.