News Values

News Values are the criteria on which events are considered to be "News Worthy".


Frequency: The time span of the event, and if it 'fits into the frequency of the news schedule. If an event is short and needs no background information, it will always fit into the schedule.

Threshold: How big is the event? This is dependent on the news organ, if the story is big enough to make the local news it needs to be 10 times bigger to make the national daily newspapers.

Unambiguity: How clear is the meaning of the event? Stories need closure, if an event is polysemic the meaning is not immediately grasped by an audience.

Meaningfulness: How meaningful will the event appear to an audience. Can they Identify with the story. 'Cultural Proximity' - stories regarding people from the same culture receive more coverage than those of other cultures.

Consonance: Does the event match the media's expectations? If the media expect something to happen then it will happen. For example if the media expect violence after a football match, then the minor amount of violence will take precedent and claim the attention. The Familiar is thought to be of more importance than the unfamiliar.

Unexpectedness: Something unpredictable and out of the ordinary. (but must confine with meaningfulness and unambiguity). 'Dog bites man' is not news - 'Man bites dog' is!

Continuity: value is placed on a story that can be covered again once it has been breaking news. "A running story" something such as war, proves attractive as it is likely to turn into a drama that may run for some time.

Personalization: Events are seen as the actions of individuals. If a story is centred on or around one person it is deemed more valuable.

Negativity: Bad News IS Good News!!! People like to know about the bad things happening

Closeness to home: News closest to the culture and geography of the news makers is highly valued. If a french yacht sinks in the channel it would not be classed newsworthy unless the passengers or boat were English.

Reference to Elite Persons: Stories about famous or powerful people are of higher value. The social activities of these people are of importance due to the public interest in the famous and special events.

Reference to Elite Nations: News form neighbouring countries or countries of significant power are more likely to be reported than news form under developed or less influential countries unless the threshold was significant.



When selecting news items, Editors think about Treatment Values.

This is the way in which the story can be presented. Stories with pictures are valued along with possible dramatization of stories and stories with conflict.

If a story doesn't have a conflict it can be created by having an opposing view and therefor portraying 'A vs B'.

By having interviews with the victims and relatives of the people involved in a story you can create a 'Human Interest' angle.

Even if a story doesn't lead itself to these treatment values, they are often presented as such, for example, Actually is valued highly in news stories, in Television news programmes you will often see a reporter live at a scene with not much to see and nothing to say that will add to the report.


Wikipedia
Understanding News Values
Using News Values