When was the last time you saw or read a news story about something stupid someone did or said that went viral on the Internet?  Why it was just the other day, when Sarah Palin confused the city of Eureka in California with the college of Eureka in Illinois. The story only came out days after it happened, mainly because it was caught and disseminated on tape.

Is it a news fad or a part of the permanent structure of the news media, these news stories in which the plot reduces to someone caught doing something very bad or very good on video or cell phone camera, which then goes pandemically viral on the Internet?

The trend started a decade ago with the infamous Paris Hilton videos.  The peak may have come late last year when the New York Time published two major stories in the same issue in which the scenario involved a video of someone doing something offensive going viral:

• Lead story of the international section was the racist video of South-African blacks eating stew that some college boys had pissed in, which happened last year and led to riots.
• Lead story in the sports section of a female soccer player caught on video two weeks ago yanking an opponent’s ponytail and seeming to throw a punch at another’s head.

In both these news stories, the event is not the news, but the reaction that came through a storm of downloads.  In both cases, moreover, the news is of a feature variety, which means that it is not absolutely necessary to cover these events, just as it is necessary to cover hard news, such as President Obama’s trip to the Gulf of Mexico or Congressional deliberations on financial reform.

Now to the question I posed at the beginning of this blog entry: Is this type of story a permanent part of the landscape? Or will the newsworthiness of a viral video end, much like the following generic stories which for very brief periods of time dominated feature news coverage:

• The fact that a celebrity started tweeting.
• The launching of the website of a prominent organization or company.
• A celebrity communicating with people via Facebook.
• A Ford vehicle driving over another previously unblemished part of the world. (For more on this media phenomenon, see the recent Fordlandia, Greg Grandin’s very intriguing book on Henry Ford’s plantation city in the heart of the Amazon.

My prediction: Although the frenzy has died down, the story of the video gone viral will remain a staple for journalists for as long as people can post and watch home-made and bootlegged videos and photographs.  Although the plot uses emerging technology, it is not about technology, but about grassroots outrage or delight, and that’s always newsworthy.

Following the generic plot lines of media stories has very practical applications in the world of both public relations and journalism. The job of the PR professional is to figure out how to make the story and messages of the organization attractive enough for the news media to want to cover them.  If you recognize a trend in media plotlines and can fit your subject into it, you have a better chance of success than a less strategic arrangement of the information. But make sure you are ahead of the fad curve and not behind it.  For example, try pitching a story to the news media today about the fact that the CEO of a large company she started tweeting.  Not 18 months ago, but today.

Now imagine yourself a journalist, with a deadline and no idea how you are going to cover the company or the event to which you have been assigned.  If you have a bag of plotlines, you can always ask questions until an answer fits one of the trendy (or even tried-and-true) scenarios, and then write away.

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