"News values are 'criteria that influence the selection and presentation of events as published news.'" - "News values are 'criteria that influence the selection and presentation of events as published news.'"
The criteria used by journalists and editors to determine what is considered newsworthy and what is not.
Definition of News Values: This is a broad topic that refers to the principles that determine whether or not a news story is newsworthy, such as timeliness, proximity, impact, prominence, conflict and human interest.
Timeliness: This news value relates to the idea that a story is more newsworthy if it is current or has just happened, thereby attracting the attention of media outlets and consumers.
Proximity: This new value relates to the geographic location where the story took place. A story that occurred in the area where news media is popular is much more likely to catch their attention.
Impact: This aspect takes into account the scale of the events, associations, and notoriety that follow a news event. The higher the magnitude and ramifications of an event, the more likely it will receive media coverage.
Prominence: This news value relates to the degree of popularity and influential people involved in the story. Celebrities, politicians, or business tycoons are more likely to receive news coverage.
Conflict: This new value is related to stories that involve a struggle, controversy, or competition between individuals or groups. Any event that hints at confrontation is likely to receive media coverage.
Human Interest: This new value is related to stories that evoke an emotional response from the audience, such as compassion, empathy, or surprise. Such stories are characterized by their ability to catch the audience's attention due to their resonant nature, life-affirming or otherwise.
Sensationalism: This aspect is a result of excessive emphasis on drama, scandal, and entertainment in news. Aimed at garnering attention, sensational news pieces tend to offer a biased, distorted, violent, or exploitative narrative, often framed upon events of little consequence.
Objectivity: This news value refers to the practice of keeping a neutral, balanced and impartial perspective when presenting news stories, taking into account all aspects and points of view.
Sources: Reporting and validating news sources are key features of a reliable journalist. The validity, reliability, and credibility of the news sources guarantee transparency, accuracy, and objectivity in the news report.
Newsworthiness: In order to be considered newsworthy, the events, people, and situations should be relevant, significant, and applicable to the audience. The potential to affect the majority, spark interest or bring about change can play a role in newsworthiness.
Newsbeat: A newsbeat is a specialized area or a topic that a reporter or journalist covers, such as politics, sports, finance or arts. The reporter tends to become an expert on their particular beat over time, thereby compiling greater knowledge and experience to enable more nuanced and insightful reporting.
Ethics: Ethical conduct, principles and values are integral to modern journalism, including issues such as conflict of interest, privacy, libel and truth in media reportage.
Story Structure: A well-told story, regardless of its content, must have a well-structured plot that conveys information in a coherent and easy-to-follow manner. The basic structure that guides journalism writing and reportage include the 5 W's and H, such as identifying Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How.
Writing Styles: Journalistic writing incorporates a distinctive style that aims at clear, concise phrasing, engaging descriptions, and logical arguments. Journalists use a variety of writing styles, including straight news reporting, feature writing, investigative reporting and editorial writing, among others.
Audience Engagement: This is the capacity of journalistic content to connect with the audience and evoke response through social media, feedback, and other platforms. The ability to personalize news stories, create profiles of sources, use multimedia, craft interactive elements, and take into account audience feedback all contribute to audience engagement.
Timeliness: The most important news is the one that just happened or is happening at present. The news matters when it has just occurred.
Proximity: The physical closeness of the news event also affects its value to the audience. News concerning a local city or nearby neighborhoods may be seen as more important to people than an isolated event elsewhere.
Prominence: The news about a person or an organization with a high degree of fame, popularity, or stature can often overshadow other significant news events.
Consequence: News stories featuring significant and far-reaching effects on a large group of people or society as a whole.
Conflict: News stories based on confrontations, disputes or disagreements can create a sense of drama and urgency among audience members.
Novelty: Unusual or extraordinary events, bizarre stories and oddities that deviate from the norm tend to be more interesting and catch audience attention.
Human Interest: News stories that evoke an emotional or empathetic response from readers or viewers through personal narratives or stories shared by people.
Currency: The fact that something is on people’s minds fairly recently can make it a matter of considerable news interest.
Relevance: News that has an impact on people's lives or affects them directly in some way is more relevant to the audience and hence, more newsworthy.
Authenticity: News stories supported by trustworthy and credible sources hold a high degree of newsworthiness as people tend to trust authoritative sources.
Unusualness: News that is unusual or breaks a routine is often more engaging.
Humour: News that makes people laugh or smile tends to be more popular, especially when it comes to lighthearted stories, in contrast to serious news.
Shock Value: News that is shocking or sensational tends to attract more viewers, but may also produce adverse effects for both the audience and the journalistic profession.
"These values help explain what makes something 'newsworthy.'"
"News values are not universal and can vary between different cultures."
"Some attempt to describe news practices across cultures, while others have become remarkably specific to the press of particular (often Western) nations."
"Decisions on the selection and prioritization of news are made by editors on the basis of their experience and intuition."
"Analysis by Galtung and Ruge showed that several factors are consistently applied across a range of news organizations."
"Their theory was tested on the news presented in four different Norwegian newspapers from the Congo and Cuban crisis of July 1960 and the Cyprus crisis of March–April 1964."
"Results were mainly consistent with their theory and hypotheses."
"Johan Galtung later said that the media have misconstrued his work and become far too negative, sensational, and adversarial."
"Methodologically and conceptually, news values can be approached from four different perspectives: material, cognitive, social, and discursive."
"Material perspective (focusing on the material reality of events)"
"Cognitive perspective (focusing on people's beliefs and value systems)"
"Social perspective (focusing on journalistic practice)"
"Discursive perspective (focusing on the discourse)"
"It is called 'discursive news values analysis' (DNVA)."
"It focuses on the 'distortion' step in Galtung and Ruge's chain of news communication."
"Analyzing how events are discursively constructed as newsworthy."
"This approach examines news values such as Negativity, Proximity, Eliteness, and others."
"This approach is influenced by linguistics and social semiotics."
"It focuses on how events are discursively constructed as newsworthy."