Today is a really slow news day, at least at the China desk. Friday is usually a slow day for news, and we are now smack in the middle of the dog days of summer.

So let’s turn to an issue about which I like to ponder once in a while: how editors choose stories. I’ve never been in the news biz (I edited a magazine once, but it was a niche, bi-monthly trade rag).

So someone explain this to me. A few months ago, I recall seeing in one of the local papers that doctors in some part of China were using electro-convulsive (shock) therapy to treat “Internet Addiction.” I considered posting on the topic as the use of ECT in the 21st century, with a couple of exceptions, is extremely troubling. I’ve also written several times in the past on Internet Addiction in China and its many “cures.”

I ultimately decided against it. What could I say besides “That’s pretty horrible”? Nobody else wrote about it either. It was not a widely distributed story.

Fast forward to last week.

All of a sudden, there was a veritable flood of stories reporting that the government would be stopping ECT treatment of Internet addiction. OK, the government action certainly makes sense. However, in my mind, the story is even less relevant than it was before, now that the “therapy” is being outlawed. If you (news organization) passed on the story before, wouldn’t you be less likely to write about it now that the practice has been discontinued?

I obviously don’t understand the business at all. If you do a Google news search on “Internet Addiction,” you’ll find this story. Google links to 273 stories, including all the major wire services, a lot of major newspapers, etc.

I have also noticed that virtually all the China aggregator/re-poster blogs I follow have run links and excerpts to one of these stories. The Guardian even put a reporter on the story and ran a piece on a representative patient who had undergone ECT treatment for Internet addiction.

Weird. Just a slow news day/week? Is it that difficult to drum up news during the summer months?

So why does that get picked up, but a story like this one, “China Lawyer Sues Judge Who Handcuffed Him to Pole” get much less attention? Just as bizarre, silly, and attention-getting, in my opinion. Just as worthy of being ignored, which it was for the most part.

Oh well, at least being over here in China, we do not have to wade through stories about how a manicurist in Scranton discovered the face of the Virgin Mary in the whipped cream on her IHOP Belgian waffle.

So we have that going for us, which is nice.