Is something that "may have happened" newsworthy?

Yes and yes. News reportage today is mostly about getting eyes for investors and advertisers. Having said that, any news or almost-news about activities that might endanger our nation’s or an allied nation’s security is worth reporting.

The question of Korea restarting their nuclear plant has grave implications for the world. The fact of whether they have or not is hard to determine. Just reporting on why they think it might have been re-started is newsworthy.

Good question. I agree with @Pachyderm_In_The_Room and @marinelife that North Korea, having clear ambitions to become a nuclear power, makes any move or even possible move in that direction newsworthy. The news organization can’t send a reporter to the scene to check out the story without putting the reporter’s life at grave risk. So this, the paper gets a pass on.

That said, there is way to much reporting accepted uncritically. Stuff form wildly partisan and even conspiracy theory websites routinely makes its way into headlines and the evening news on the major TV channels. Fox News saves even the step of searching the Web. It’s less trouble and a more controlled process, they have discovered, to just make up news. A few images from a stock photo agency saves the cost of sending a photographer out, and allows reporting in detail on things that only happened in the news director’s head.

A bug of mine is when the newscasters say “tonight’s top stories”
They’re actual events not a fucking story!

All, I am not underestimating the importance of the nuclear plant and its threat to the world. That’s absolutely not my point.

My objection to an article that says “this may have happened” is that it has no content or substance. it’s similar to me saying “I might have had orange juice this morning at breakfast.” What conclusions can you draw from my statement? Absolutely none.

Give me concrete news, not speculation.

I don’t know. The interesting thing will be how this gets reported on if it turns out that North Korea didn’t start it’s nuclear reactor. If they simply issue a minor correction on page 12 two months later, the damage has already been done. The public will simply have absorbed this and decided that North Korea is up to something quite dangerous. It just so happens that North Korea is a fucking nightmare, and we do want to make sure they are not engaged in uranium enrichment. But it still doesn’t make it right.

I immediately thought of ‘some people say’. But I’m not sure this is really the same type of thing. It does feel lazy, and we wouldn’t be tolerating it if the players were different. So, I agree with the general point of your question. We should point out when this happens.

I think it is. It may just be a heads up, but I think it’s an important one.

It has been “newsworthy” for thousands of years.

No. This is, as you say, reportorial laziness. If reportorial is a word.

Saddam may have Weapons of Mass Destruction
Saddam may have supported Al Qaeda
Bin Laden may be responsible for 11/9
Assad may have used chemical weapons on the rebels

Funny you only realise this now, over NK’s pilfy reactor.

I think your main issue is with the wording…

I’m not sure how much about the story you’ve read, but basically satellite images suggest the plant may have been started.

That’s news.

Do they know for sure that the plant has been started? Do they trust the people who say the satellite images suggest it may have been started 100%? No and no.

But “Guy says satellite images look like there may be steam from a nuclear plant in North Korea but I don’t stare at satellite images all day so I’m not sure, this may be a Waffle House in Florida firing up for the morning rush, make up your own mind.” is too long a headline.

@funkdaddy – then the headline should have been “Satellite Photos Suggest Nuclear Restart”

Satellite images suggest North Korea’s Yongbyon nuclear reactor restarted

Good?

I remember hearing a journalist tell the following story. Journalism 101, the professor writes a bunch of “facts” on the board including all professors and TA’s will meet on the following date at the following location to discussion curriculum changes yada yada. He tasks these students to write the newspaper article for that story.
Well, this journalism student, like the rest, puts the 5 W’s and 1 H into an inverted pyramid just like she thought she should. Then the professor pulls the aha! moment .. the story is: School is cancelled on that day!

People do not care that columns of steam are raising from a NK site. If the headline was “Columns of steam raising from a suspected NK nuclear site”, I think most people (4th grade literacy level, remember), would not be able to put it into any context. The headline, as delivered, communicates why people should care.

What might happen often fills the news. I see stories about possible legislation, possible weather consequences, and many other possible happenings.

Does the very real possibility of nuclear war qualify as newsworthy?

Those of us who were around in October 1962 remember when the Cuban missile crisis reached the moment after 13 unbelievably scary days when, but for frantic back-channel diplomacy, a nuclear conflict between the U.S. and the Soviet Union more-than-might have happened.

@Pachyderm_In_The_Room – yes, to answer your question. But that isn’t what I asked.

Absolutely. Sweden was close to a major nuclear accident for example.