Lecture 9

Newsworthiness can simply be defined as the survey of certain subjects, and their ability to be regarded as news. Newsworthiness stands on shifting sands, and is forever dependent on a number of factors, both intrinsic and extrinsic; making it appear to be a relatively mythical concept. Simply, newsworthiness is shaped by news values.

So what are news values?

• Impact – the “wow factor” and the hook
• Audience identification – established a relationship with the reader, and draws them in by sparking stories about their interests
• Pragmatics – ones forever changing context i.e. facticity, religious affiliation, current affairs etc.
• Source influence – its validity and bias

A simple definition of newsworthiness can be found in the inverted pyramid. The more valuable news values are found at the top of the triangle, and essentially form ‘front-page’ news. Those less important, and less likely to be read, aren’t found on the front page, but latter in the news platform.

Another simple definition of newsworthiness can be found in the line, “if it bleeds it leads”. Tragedy strikes an interest in people, and so often characterizes newsworthiness.  

Johan Galtung and Mari Ruge perhaps provided the first definition of news values, in a paper published in 1965. Ironically the paper was not intended to define news values, but was written to advise the Norwegian press on some new methods of reporting, as Norway faced three major foreign crises. Such values fall into three main key categories.

Impact

• Threshold: The bigger impact the story has, the more people it affects, the more extreme the effect or the more money or resources it involves, the better its chances of hitting the news stands.
• Frequency: Events, such as motorway pile-ups, murders and plane crashes, which occur suddenly and fit well with the newspaper or news broadcast's schedule are more readily reported than those which occur gradually or at inconvenient times of day or night. Long-term trends are unlikely to receive much coverage.
• Negativity: Bad news is more exciting than good news. Stories about death, tragedy, bankruptcy, violence, damage, natural disasters, political upheaval or simply extreme weather conditions are always rated above positive stories such as royal weddings or celebrations.  Bad news stories are more likely to be reported than good news because they are more likely to score high on other news values, such as threshold, unexpectedness, unambiguity and meaningfulness,
• Unexpectedness: If an event is out of the ordinary it will be more likely to make it into the news than an everyday occurrence would. As Charles A. Dana famously put it: ''"if a dog bites a man, that's not news. But if a man bites a dog, that's news!"''
• Unambiguity: Events which are easy to grasp make for better copy than those which are open to more than one interpretation, or where understanding of the implications depends on first understanding the complex background to the event.

Audience identification

• Personalisation: People are interested in people. News stories that centre on a particular person, and are presented from a human interest angle, are likely to make the front page, particularly if they involve a well-known person. Some people claim this news value has become distorted, and that news editors over-rate personality stories, especially those involving celebrities.
• Meaningfulness: This relates to cultural proximity and the extent to which the audience identifies with the topic. Stories about people who speak the same language, look the same, and share the same preoccupations as the audience receive more coverage than those involving people who do not.
• Reference to elite nations: Stories concerned with global powers receive more attention than those dealing with less influential nations. This also relates to cultural proximity. Those nations which are culturally closest to our own will receive most of the coverage.
• Reference to elite persons: The media pay attention to the rich, powerful, famous and infamous. Stories about important people get the most coverage. Hence, the American President gets more coverage than your local councillor.

Pragmatics of media coverage

• Consonance: Stories which match the media's expectations receive more coverage than those which contradict them.  At first sight, this appears to contradict the notion of unexpectedness. However, consonance refers to the media's readiness to report an item, which they are more likely to do if they are prepared for it. Indeed, journalists often have a preconceived idea of the angle they want to report an event from, even before they get there.
• Continuity: A story which is already in the news gathers a kind of momentum – the running story. This is partly because news teams are already in place to report the story, and partly because previous reportage may have made the story more accessible to the public.
• Composition: Stories must compete with one another for space in the media. For instance, editors may seek to provide a balance of different types of coverage. If there is an excess of foreign news, for instance, the least important foreign story may have to make way for an inconsequential item of domestic news. In this way the prominence given to a story depends not only on its own news value but also on those of competing stories. This is a matter of the editors' judgement, more than anything else. (http://www.btinternet.com/~owenst/NewsValues.html#Galtung_and_Ruges_list_of_news_values)

Since 1965 news values have been analyzed repeatedly. In 2001, Harcup and O’Niell performed a study of the UK press, and defined news values as the following:

• The power elite: stories concerning powerful individuals, organisations or institutions
• Celebrity: stories concerning people who are already famous
• Entertainment: stories concerning  sex,  showbusiness,  human  interest,  animals,  an unfolding  drama, or  offering  opportunities for humorous treatment,  entertaining photographs or witty headlines
• Surprise: stories with an element or surprise and/ or contrast
• Bad news: stories with negative overtones such as conflict or tragedy
• Good news: stories with positive overtones such as rescues and cures
• Magnitude: stories perceived as sufficiently  significant either  in  the numbers of  people involved or in potential impact
• Relevance: stories about issues, groups and nations perceived to be relevant to the audience
• Follow-ups: stories about subjects already in the news
• Media agenda: stories that set or fit the news organisation’s own agenda

In a technologically driven world, newsworthiness faces various threats. Predominantly, these threats come from public relations, commercialization and the constant struggle between ideals and reality in the field of journalism. Simply, PR is making journalists lazy, commercialization is destroying quality, and the pressures of reality are forever blurring the search for journalistic ideals… or so we say.

As budding journalists we must intend to distill quality practice and performance into our work, and pursue  ‘good journalism’. Amen.