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Assignment On News Values

The document discusses news values which are guidelines used by journalists to determine what makes a story newsworthy. It explores typical news values like timeliness, impact, conflict and human interest. It also examines how journalists apply news values to select stories and what defines news from the perspective of audiences and journalists.

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Abhay Gupta
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565 views

Assignment On News Values

The document discusses news values which are guidelines used by journalists to determine what makes a story newsworthy. It explores typical news values like timeliness, impact, conflict and human interest. It also examines how journalists apply news values to select stories and what defines news from the perspective of audiences and journalists.

Uploaded by

Abhay Gupta
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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ASSIGNMENT

WRITING FOR MEDIA


DEPARTMENT OF CULTURE AND MEDIA STUDIES

SESSION:- 2019-20

SUBMITTED TO : SUBMITTED BY :

Prof. Subhash Dhulia NAVNIT KUMAR

DUE DATE: 25-11-2019 2019PGDMW003


SUBMITTED ON: 25-11-2019
News values
News values are general guidelines or criteria which determine how much
prominence a media outlet gives a news story. They explain why a story
interests its audience; and how editors and other journalists decide that one
piece of information is news while another is not.
Media outlets include newspapers, magazines, radio, television, and the
Internet. News values are also called news criteria or news factors.

Journalists select stories with most news values. ©


Introduction
Journalists are looking out for news stories that attract a significant
audience or readership. They must discover which information is
newsworthy and filter out that which is of little interest. By applying a set of
guidelines or criteria, they can identify what material will make the best
stories. We call these guidelines “news values”.

News values are central to this process because they identify the
ingredients of a story that will engage attention. Each news value describes
a different quality.
Typical news values are:

Timeliness Unexpected
Impact Close to home
Conflict Human interest
Current Prominent
Before we explore news values in greater detail, let’s look at some simple
definitions of news.

What is News?
News is what people want to hear or need to know. But it is difficult to
define largely because stories can be presented in a variety of ways. News
can inform, educate or even entertain. Hard
news deals with serious topics and events. So, it must be accurate, truthful
and fair. By contrast, soft news usually tries to entertain or advise.
Over the years, many leading journalists have offered some useful
definitions.

Charles A Dana, Editor of The New York Sun from 1868 until his death in
1897, famously said:
 If a dog bites a man, that’s not news. But if a man bites a dog, that is
news.
Lester Markel, Sunday Editor of The New York Times from 1923 to
1964, added:
According to former Times and Sunday Times Editor, Harold Evans, a
news story should be:
 about necessary information and unusual events

 based on observable facts

 an unbiased account

 What you see is news, what you know is background, what you feel
is opinion.

 free from the reporter’s opinion

Evans, Harold ‘’Editing and Design: Volume 1’’ (1972)


However, selecting news stories is a more complex and rigorous process
than these concise definitions suggest.

What makes a story newsworthy?


Information arrives in the newsroom minute by minute. It comes from a
wide range of sources by way of press releases, phone calls, social media,
meetings, research and so on.

However, a newspaper has only so many column inches to report the day’s
events. A news broadcaster has only so many minutes.
News Values Diagram ©
Limited by time and space, a news editor cannot report all this material. So,
they must be selective, filter out information that lacks newsworthiness and
retain stories that most interest their audience.

Thus, anyone wishing to get their story reported in the news media must
understand the what ingredients are needed for a good newsworthy story.

A knowledge of news values also helps public relations professionals to


maximise media coverage of their events. As a result, they can be more
effective in boosting their clients’ profile.

Journalists are always on the look out for strong stories that are in the
public interest. Their knowledge of news values will enable them to select
stories that can boost their circulation or media ratings.

Those responsible for deciding the news agenda are sometimes


called “gatekeepers”. Gatekeeping takes place at several levels – the
newspaper or broadcast station’s owner, its editor and senior journalists.
The news agenda can vary from publisher to publisher. It reflects the style,
ethos and ideology of each media outlet. Newspapers, for instance, tend to
have a political persuasion that reflects the their proprietors’ views.

Audience perceptions of news


The news process is a two-way transaction, involving both the journalist
and their audience. Newspaper circulation figures and media viewing
ratings reveal the most popular stories. Consumers make known the kind
of the news that interests them most when they choose their broadcast
channel or their newspaper.

However, this is a rough and ready measure. Little work has been done to
define equivalent factors or news values that determine an audience’s
perception of news. This is largely because it appears impossible to
define common factors that would generate interest in a mass audience of
many persuasions.

The research that has been undertaken so far concentrates on what


the journalist perceives as news. However, the boundary between
journalist and audience is rapidly blurring with the growth of citizen
journalism and interactive media. Immediate feedback gives journalists a
better understanding of what their audience is looking for in a news story.
News values as criteria for selecting a
newsworthy story
A broadly agreed set of criteria or news values enables journalists to spot a
newsworthy story. They provide journalists with a useful tool to quickly
sort, process and select news from a vast amount of available information.

Rather than ticking off a checklist of criteria, seasoned journalists tend to


judge newsworthiness on the basis of their experience and intuition. Even
so, whichever approach they take the same news values underlie their
choice. Indeed, journalists from across a range of print, broadcast, and
online news organisations apply similar news values worldwide.

Over the years, scholars and journalists alike have drawn up revised lists of
appropriate news values. Such lists are endless. Some aim to describe
news practices across many different cultures. Others are specific to one
nation or place.

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