What we call the news

Only a small percentage of events that take place globally make the news. So how do we determine what makes the cut?

Lecture number nine discussed news values and what we call the news. News values are the degree of prominence a media outlet gives to a story, and the attention that it is paid by the audience.

While news values vary across cultures and areas, there are some key aspects to consider when evaluating news worthiness.

Impact: How much will this affect the audience?

“News is anything that makes a reader say, `Gee Whiz'!”
Arthur MacEwen, American editor

However, with such an array of media platforms and ease of access to information across the globe, is it more difficult than ever to surprise and attain the interest of audiences?

“No one says "Gee Whiz!" very much these days, of course, not even in America — both because that expression has long since been supplanted by others more colourful and less printable, and because our capacity for surprise has long since been dulled by a surfeit of sources.”
Shashi Tharoor, Indian writer and diplomat

Audience identification: Is the story interesting? Does it relate to what is happening in the world and in areas of the culture of interest to your specific audience? A valuable story to the audience is one with which they feel some ownership.

Pragmatics:

• ·      Ethics
• ·      Facticity
• ·      Practicality
• ·      Current affairs
• ·      Everyday 

Source influence: How powerful/trustworthy/reliable/accredited are your sources?

 

Among the most valuable of stories, without a doubt carry the “Ghee Whiz!” factor and, in considering audience identification, people are also attracted to relativity and stories of close proximity.

‘If it bleeds, it leads’
‘If it’s local, it leads’

Though highly sort after, these are not the only news values set to determine the news worthiness of a story.  Here’s a few more values brainstormed in the lecture and tutorials:

 

Complementarity and combinations of such news values will allow a story higher probability of successfully becoming news.  Very few of these factors ultimately will deem a story un-newsworthy.

With continued development of news values, tensions climb amongst journalistic approaches. There remain three main issues:

• ·      Journalism’s ideals vs journalism’s reality
• What a journalist is taught and sets out to do as against what they actually, or are perceived to do – a question of ethics
• ·      Journalism vs Public Relations
• The age-old battle, but are journalists now relying more than ever on PR – is this an issue?
• ·      Journalism vs commercialisation of media and social life
• Should we be questioning our news values?

Is there an issue with ♫ ‘what we call the news’ ♫ ?

Are our news values and the amount of importance we place on news stories completely distorted? Would this be a result of the values of the audience or the prominence media outlets put on particular stories? Being reliant on each other, they are likely both to blame for any possible misconstrued values. Do you think there is a problem at all with what we see in the news?