Munir Umrani, at the Blogging Journalist, picks up on the debate over news – should it inform or entertain? Let me put that question into a news genre and see if it works…

Should sports news entertain and inform – or both? Results, columnists, previews, “exclusives” – match reports and analysis. The genre has it all. Readers want the results to be 100% accurate, and the match report to have some measure of objectivity. There are meaningless end of season contests and there are thrilling cup clashes. Some sports fight for attention, others wish that every piece of trivia about players and clubs could avoid ending up on the back pages.

Should sports news be a shocking indictment of a national and international waste of grown men’s time? Should it expose the ownership and rights issues that underlie the business? Or should it celebrate the activities of athletes who are entertainers?

It’s not the news but the content that’s hiding behind this debate, and if we really want to debate that, then we need to come out from behind the entertain/inform argument.