So we might hear about news values, but how many of us really understand what it is, and what implications do they have on what is brought to us through the news?
Out of all the events that occur around the world- and trust me there are billions of untold stories that never make the news- but who decides what is newsworthy? What factors influence this decision?
NEWS VALUES:
First and foremost, is it important to know: what are 'news values'?
"The degree of prominence a media outlet gives to a story and the attention that is paid by an audience."
News values are all about 4 fundamental things, these are the important influences on what stories make it, and what stories don't:
1) Impact: what affect is it having on the audience? Good? Bad? The targeted type of affect?
2)Audience identificate: how well will the audience relate to it- this is important because people are often most attracted to the things that appeal to them, and what appeals more to someone then something they can relate to, something that has a connection to them in some way.
3) Pragmatics: Ethics, facticity, practice/practical and current affairs.
and lastly..
4) Source influence
A further definition by A. Boyd (1994) "News journalism has a broadly agreed set of values, often referred to as newsworthiness.."
Whilst the news values may vary, it is a universal concept.
Most people that undertake a journalism course hear the well known saying "If it bleeds, it leads." and whilst many of us might find this terrible, it couldn't be closer to the truth. Think about the last couple of newspaper front pages, or the headlines on the news today/tonight... what were they? Well, there is usually two dominant things. Local events, or tragedies. Which leads to the next phrase "If it's local it leads." These are the two major things that make something newsworthy, which comes under the first two of the above dot points, impact and audience identificate. We, as humans, are naturally attracted to certain things. The stories that intrigue us, or the stories that relate to us. The last news headline that I can recall, was about the local Brisbane lady who had disappeared. This story was a hit for tv news, radio news and of course newspapers, but why was it so newsworthy? It satisfied both phrases. It was a mystery, a normal lady, just like us, had disappeared. It immediately leads us to the worse scenarios... could it be murder? Suicide? Is she lost somewhere, hurt, scared? What if it had been someone we had known, what would we think? Not only this, but it was a local story. It relates to us because it is so close to home, it could have been any of us. I realise there was a follow up story but that is up to you to find out what happened, if you haven't already heard.
There are many sets of news values which determines the newsworthiness of a story, each varying on the type of news channel, whether it be local news, world news, entertainment news or social news. Each have a particular audience in which their news stories much reach out to and attract. There are stories everywhere, but it is finding the one that satisfies each of the set of values of news, that will make it to the top of 'must publish' list.
Next time you read a newspaper, or watch the news on television, or even listen to the radio...
listen and look at what is making the top stories, do they prove those two phrases to be true, are they stories about death, murder or tragedies, or perhaps local events? What things have been classified as the most newsworthy of all that is happening day-to-day?
Hmmm
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