How do the media decide what is newsworthy or not?

I'm sure many will agree that amongst the news of accused paedophile Jimmy Savile that there may be many news items left unspoken of... why?

The simple truth of the matter is that if it doesn't involve celebrities or vulnerable groups, it's not worth putting in the paper. So can we ever really trust what we read from day to day? The answer is no.

The Jimmy Savile case has been plaguing the front pages of newspapers for weeks on end, yet to what avail? Is it really because there are no other stories to fill up our front pages? Of course not, it's simply the most shocking due to its content. Minor stories don't get much coverage, and one of the views I'd like to express is that they should, if not for the 'shock factor' then at least to protect the eyes of some particularly younger readers of papers or viewers of TV news.

Let's take an ordinary occurrence, such as breakfast, and see how we can make it into a news story. If it were me, eating an ordinary bowl of cornflakes for breakfast - not particularly newsworthy. Yet, if the Prime Minister ate a bowl of cornflakes but had personally murdered 6 cows to get the milk for it (and, of course, this is all hypothetical...the probability of David Cameron murdering cows is not something I would like to place any bets on either way!), it would instantly become a news story and although maybe not front page worthy, it would definitely have its place.

It shocks me that we as a country are exposing young children to such things, whether it be the PM murdering cows to get milk for breakfast or the numerous horrific allegations against Jimmy Savile that appears on the front page of a newspaper. All a child has to do is walk into a shop with their parents and attempt to look at a kid's magazine, yet right next door is a story on paedophilia.

Children are inquisitive creatures and also impressionable. On a moral ground, is this the sort of impression which our society should be immortalising in their memories?