Number thiry one

Jour 1111 lecture week 9

News values

What do we mean?

·         At work

·         Newsworthiness

·         “the audiences”

·         The future

Definition of news values: degree of prominence a media outlet gives to a story

1.       IMPACT- gets audience saying “gee whiz”

2.       AUDIENCE IDENTIFICATION- interesting, something the audience can relate to

3.       PRAGMATICS- ethics, facticity, practicality

4.       SOURCE INFLUENCE- the way stories are spun

“NEWS JOURNALISM HAS BROADLY SET RULES CALLED NEWSWORTHINESS”

-Values vary across news services and across countries/cultures

If it bleeds it leads/ If it’s local it leads

How do particular institutions shape their news values?

•  “editors are the human sieves of the torrent of news”. 
• You learn the news values of a place through osmosis – an understanding that comes.

Over time, many journalists have tried to define news values….

·         In the 1960s, one journalist defined the factors that make a story newsworthy as- negativity, closeness to home, recency, currency, continuity, uniqueness, simplicity, personality, expectedness, elite nations/people, exclusivity, size.

·         In 1995 another journalist defined the newsworthy factors of her time as- significance, proximity, conflict, human interest, novelty and prominence.

THREATS- TENSIONS of newsworthiness

• ·         Lazy journalism
• ·         PR influence
• ·         Tabloidization
• ·         Hyper-commercialisation
• ·         Media mergers controlling what audience sees/reads
• 
  

REALITIES of newsworthiness

• ·         Journalism is infected by PR
• ·         Rapid news cycles makes journalism untrustworthy
• ·         Media mergers corrupt the news telling process

“THE AUDIENCE”

• ·         Have they moved on?
• ·         Journalism is no longer one way
• ·         More and more people are becoming citizen journalists
• ·         Audiences are getting sick of ‘spin’

THE FUTURE

• ·         Are newsworthy values already changing?
• ·         What drives decisions over what is ‘newsworthy’?
• ·         What do you think is newsworthy?
• I think anything that concerns the people of our society, in any way, shape or form, is newsworthy. I dont think it is right, for big media companies to control what the audience does or doesn't read or see. Everyone has the right to be informed and make up their own decision over what they personally believe is newsworthy. We are all completely difference human beings and we all find different issues effect us on different levels, therefore I believe there needs to be a move to a platform of news on which everyone can access what ever they like, whenever they like.