WHAT MAKES NEWS – EXPLORING THE CRITERIA

PEDAGOGICAL APPROACHES and ACTIVITIES
‘The theory of journalism we have inherited…form(s) the basis of the journalism of the new century, a journalism of sense making based on synthesis, verification, and fierce
independence.’ Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel, The Elements of Journalism

Journalists need to make sense of a vast amount of information and consider how to organize it in a way that highlights the issues that are most important so it is comprehensible to an audience that will have very different levels of understanding of the events in question. The judgements involved will include selecting those stories deemed to be important (newsworthy) and deciding how to present the information. Inevitably the form of presentation (sometimes known as the ‘framing’) will reflect the experience and outlook of the journalists themselves. It is important for an audience to understand these framings and to think critically about them.

TEXTUAL ANALYSIS
Teacher analyzes the newsworthiness of each of the front page stories of a major newspaper (or its online edition), based on the criteria for assessing the news value of
a story. This typically includes such factors as:
● Timeliness
● Impact and importance
● Prominence
● Proximity
● Conflict
● Unusual/human interest
● Currency
● Necessity
He or she then analyzes the stories based on the factors to be considered in making news judgements or in shaping the news. These are:
● Truthfulness: accuracy (getting the facts right) and coherence (making sense of the
facts)
● Dedication to the public interest
● Informing, rather than manipulating, the public
● Completeness/comprehensiveness
● Diversity (inclusion of news of all communities, not just targeted audiences) Attention should also be paid to the placement of articles, headlines and font size used, and photographs and captions included.

This is pretty basic stuff, but it doesn’t hurt to be reminded of the qualities that make a story worthy of the name “news.”

What makes a story newsworthy – worthy of the name “news”? If you’re on deadline, the question may be “What do we have that’s ready to go?” In some work environments the question may boil down to “What has my boss told me I have to run?” But in the ideal world there are a number of qualities that contribute to the newsworthiness of a story.

A general definition is that news is what people want or need to know. It’s what editors and reporters think is interesting, or exciting, or important. Here are some of the qualities journalists look for in a story:

Timeliness: In the news business, newer is better, and stories grow old in a hurry. You can think of news as a baked good that is best served fresh — after a while it’s stale and nobody is interested. (The danger in this is that sometimes we’re in such a hurry to tell the story that we try to serve it before it’s ready).

Proximity: People are more interested in home-grown news than in news from far-away places. A toxic waste dump in Russia is mildly interesting. A toxic waste dump in your neighborhood is major news!

Impact or Consequence: Will the information in this story change our lives? Ask this question: “Does it matter?” Does your story pass the “so what” test?

Novelty or Rarity: Is it an unusual story? The old saying in the news business is that when a dog bites a man, it’s not news. For a while, U.S. churches sending missions teams to Russia was big news. Then it reached the point where it was almost more unusual for a church to not be sending people to Russia.

Conflict: In a novel-writing class, you learn that your story needs a conflict. A book about everybody being nice to each other all of the time and living carefree lives doesn’t exactly grab attention. But everybody loves conflict. That’s part of why the news seems so negative. The millions of people who don’t get murdered each day aren’t news. The few who do are. You’ve probably heard the cliche “no news is good news.” A lot of media outlets seems to follow the formula “good news is no news.”

Human interest: This is a little hard to define, but the general idea is that people are interested in other people. Taking a glimpse at somebody else’s life appeals to a voyeuristic part of human nature. A fire burning down an empty building doesn’t have nearly the human interest of a fire that burns somebody’s home, leaving a family homeless or killing somebody. We identify with other people, and that’s part of what gives a story human interest.

Prominence: This is part of human interest. People are more interested in famous people than in non-famous people. If Bob Johnson, a farmer from Nebraska, has an affair, it’s not going to make the newspaper. When the President of the United States has an affair, it’s front-page news. This is why “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” was a successful TV show, and why unsung heroes often remain unsung.

Those are the basic aspects of newsworthiness — timeliness, proximity, impact or consequence, novelty or rarity, conflict, human interest, and prominence. Few stories have all of these qualities, but most good ones have at least two or three.

CONTEXTUAL ANALYSIS
Teacher reviews the coverage of both CNN and Al Jazeera (or other media organizations of choice/relevance) on a particular topic and particular day and compares and contrasts the angling (i.e. selling of a particular point of view or perspective) and treatment (i.e. information provided, sources acknowledged, interviews provided, any visual support of news stories) of the two coverages

NEWS ANALYSIS AND SELF-ASSESSMENT
Students are given two different pieces of news writing on the same subject and are
asked to explain which piece is stronger or more informative and how the other news
article could be improved. (For criteria to be used, please refer to Textual Analysis
above.)

ASSESSMENT RECOMMENDATIONS
Reflection paper based on textual analysis/contextual analysis/news analysis
Participation in group learning activities, e.g. workshops, class discussions

TOPICS FOR FURTHER CONSIDERATION
News settings (socio-cultural, political, and economic influences on the news)
Effects of news settings on news values and editorial processes
Global flow of information and shaping of the news
Global news media organizations (CNN, Al Jazeera, BBC, Fox News)