News Values - Lecture 9

“The degree of prominence a media outlet gives to a story, and the attention that is paid by an audience.”

The news is a mighty power, for it determines what the majority of us will hear, read, see and not hear, read or see. It has the power to manipulate what we think and how we feel. A lot takes places every day – more than 7 billion people are experiencing experiences and yet all we see is 30 -60 minutes worth of stories. Only some make it.

But what makes news?

News Values:

Impact – the Gee Whiz effect!

Audience Identification – what is interesting and relatable to the audience, placing ownership on the story

 Pragmatics – ethics/practical

Source Influence – the source of the story, who wants it heard and why?

As journalists in JOUR1111 we’ve heard of the phrase ‘newsworthiness’ used over and over again each lecture. It is the crux of sharing the news, because newsworthiness is the umbrella term for the values a story must fulfil to some degree to be told to the public.

‘If it bleeds, it leads!’ / ‘If it’s local it leads’ – seem to be prime examples

However news values are different everywhere. Not just in different cultures and countries around the globe, but in Australia and local areas as well. You have rural versus city. Liberal versus Labor, higher-class versus lower-class, bike-riders versus car drivers. In the end, figuring out what is worthy of the news is something you discover for yourself and get a feel for with experience and observations.

Here are some common factors shared in international news:

1.      Negativity

2.      Proximity – if its local

3.      Recency – breaking news

4.      Currency – has already been deemed valuable/re-occuring news

5.      Coninuity – continuing impact (e.g., war)

6.      Uniqueness – say if a man bit a dog, or Alice Cooper’s snake dying after it was bitten by a rat (that’s true actually)

7.      Simplicity – obvious but true

8.      Personality

9.      Expectedness

10.  Elite Nations/People

11.  Exclusivity

12.  Size – bigger impact

You also see stories which have entertainment or drama value. My favourites tend to be ones with educational value (anything done from Vlogbrothers or 60 Minutes) or that are just generally interesting.

Of course, like all things there are threats or downsides to newsworthiness. The most pressing seems to be that of commercialisation, tabloidisation and Public Relations. Mostly because this means there will be someone controlling what the public are ultimately seeing and with that power comes great responsibility – one that most people tend to neglect or abuse. Lastly there is the issue of what is ideal versus what is reality.

Personally I think a lot of the answers are sitting right in front of us; listen to your audience! This isn’t a novel where the ending has already been written. Things can change and the audience should be allowed to say what they want to hear and don’t. Social media is certainly assisting many in this manner with many talk shows reading feedback on air. You have citizen journalists who are finding stories out of their own interest and passion and wants others to know about. If there can be more dealings with the public than the big bosses then a lot of hope can be restored to the industry.