News

News Reporting

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What type of News?

Hard News
Begins with the most striking details after that, the information declines in importance. Background details help to make the story clear and understandable.

Soft News
The news element is strong at the beginning but is treated in a much lighter way. The tone is often witty or ironic. There is more description and comment in soft news stories.

News Feature
Longer than a straight news story. You can tell what the angle of the story is. Quotations are an important characteristic. You may often see descriptions, comment and analysis and background details along with eye witness accounts.

Backgrounder
This is not news but 'explaining' the news. This helps to set the scene of the story, giving details on the historical background that lead up to the event.

Colour feature
Doesn't always have a strong news angle. These concentrate more on description, eye witness accounts, quotations and the factual details.

Writing News Reports

Whether writing for a newspaper or radio/TV news broadcast, news reports follow similar structures.

Intro.
The introduction of the story is the most important part as it should not only attract the readers interest but it should also set the tone and highlight the theme of the story. In the Intro you need to include the 'famous 5'

The Famous 5

WHO is/was involved
WHAT happened
WHERE did it happen
WHEN did it happen
WHY did it happen

Sometimes 'HOW' is included as a 6th 'W'.

The introduction should not answer all of these questions but, by using 2 or 3 of the W's it should define the news angle. You can then lead the rest of the story by answering some of the others.

News Values

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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

News Gathering & Selection

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NEWS IS CREATED!!!!!

News is a process of selection and construction. News papers and News broadcasts are constructed and meaning is constructed into them.

News Gathering
News is not waiting to be collected. Reporters collect news by going to regular sources such as press officers, Press conferences, Junkets etc... A lot of material comes through news agencies such as Associated Press and Reuters

The material collected through these agencies is paid for; the television news operations across Europe have a link up every morning to buy and sell news items.

BBC NewsWatch

News Agenda
News items are selected in or our. The news organisations set up an agenda of topics that form the news. It is the editors (of all news mediums) that chose the news and by doing so they are also choosing an agenda. This agenda is set to determine our views of what is important.

Gate Keepers
Gate keepers are those responsible for what stories go into the newspaper or programme. They have the control to edit out certain parts of stories or cut entire stories. Gate keepers are mainly the Editors of the publication/programme, although often the owner of the organisation acts as a gate keeper, with the most famous being Rupert Murdoch, owner of The Sun and News of the World.

Bias and Impartiality.
Broadcast news does not take sides and does not not show favour to one particular political party over another, this however cannot be said of news papers. Newspapers often tend to lean towards a certain political party, many include editorials which show bias towards certain events and provide a particular interpretation of the events. This expression of opinions shows an area of bias.

Media Knowall
Electronic News Gathering

Influence of Technology

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Influence on Production

Information needs to be accessible as quickly as possible; technology helps make the News production process more efficient.

The introduction of EPNS (Electronic News Production System), a computer system developed by Associated Press allows a greater access to news wires.

Digital Technology
Pictures are digitalized and sent on a server.

As Broadband speeds get faster, video footage can be sent over the Internet.

As technology goes digital, there is no need to wait for tapes/rushes/ prints etc... to arrive, all can be sent online.

Although Satellite is used for live news feeds, this seems likely to change as Broadband speeds get faster. Channel 4 are already planning on rejecting satellite as soon as broadband allows them as they already send all their pre recorded footage over the Internet.

Reporters are now often deployed as 'one man band', they are capable not only of reporting but of filming and editing. This can be done all in one go and then emailed across to the news room ready for inclusion in a bulletin.

Advances in technology are not only improving news reporting, it is also having a negative effect on employment within journalism, for example in Broadcast News:those who fetch and carry tapes are no longer needed. In Print Journalism, there is an increase in freelance journalists working from home as they now have the ability to write news reports and upload digital photos and send them over the Internet to the newsroom.

Channel 4 have a website that explains the operations of a news room and digital technology:
Breaking the News
Broadcast Engineering

Where else can we get news?

News is not only available through TV, Radio, Newspapers and Online:

Companies such as sky news and BBC provide not only teletext news services but also interactive 'red button' news services where viewers can select different news stories and reports specific to sport or entertainment etc... This allows the viewer to 'pick and choose' what they want to find out more about.

You can have headlines and breaking news sent directly to your mobile phone via sms. This offers images, video clips, and news on tap 24/7.

Many train and tube stations along with airports have screens offering rolling news feeds.

The Future of News?

Now we can access news via the internet and on our mobile phone and customise what news we want through digtal 'red button' sites on TV - will there still be a need for newspapers?

Broadcast News

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TV News

It is dependent upon the channel and time of broadcast to how the news is presented and structured. Each channel has a house style that it follows for all it's news broadcasts.

News on Television not only includes actual news programmes (IE, evening and 10 'o' clock) but also Breakfast news and 24 hour news channels.

Breakfast News:
Magazine style Format with News Bulletins every hour hour along with local news bulletins.
2 presenters, 1 male,1 female, lots of banter.
Interviews with people involved with news stories (victims, relatives celebrities etc...)

BBC vs GMTV
BBC Breakfast follows a similar magazine format but also includes business reports on the stock exchange and share prices, where as GMTV include sections dedicated to fashion items and entertainment news.

Local News
Local news bulletins have 2 slightly different styles. The lunch time and morning bulletins and night time headlines are more serious in tone, whilst the evening programmes are longer in duration and less formal. The studios for BBC Local News (Look North) are designed to look the same as the studios of BBC National news, using the same colour scheme and similar layout.

Evening News
The evening news bulletins are produced in a way that is easily digestible. They provide detailed coverage of the top news stories without being too analytical.

10 'o' Clock News
These bulletins are more serious in tone and offer more in depth analysis. They often show footage that is more graphic than on previous bulletins as the Target Audience is older and the programme is broadcast after the watershed.

Channel 4 News
The Evening news on Channel 4 is broadcast at 7pm after the news on the other terrestrial channels have finished. This broadcast offers a more analytical look at the days news. the target audience are business people that get home later and are wanting an in depth account of the news.

24hour News Channels
Provide constant rolling news. dependent upon the time of day the schedule varies slightly to whether they include questions and debate, but breaking news always takes president. The schedules always include dedicated sections for world news, business news, sports news and also Prime Minister's Question Time. Each Channel has their own style, but usually have a formal direct mode of address.

Programme Structure.

All News Programmes have a narrative structure - a beginning middle and an end. The Majority of Broadcasts follow similar running order with stories declining in importance the later in the bulletin they are situated:

Headlines
Main Story
News Stories
Sports News
Entertainment News
Headline Recap
'And Finally'

"And Finally' stories are light hearted often bizarre news that enable the programme to end on a happy note.

Click on the picture below to see the codes and conventions for TV News.
Take a look around the virtual studio at the sky news and find out more about how a story turns into a news report:
Sky News

Have a look at the guidelines from the BBC training site, these explain how best to write a script for a news bulletin:

BBC Style Guide

Radio News

News on Radio has to be short and to the point. Radio bulletins follow a very simple format of headlines and then brief details of the story. Commercial stations often use vox pops and snipets of interviews with 'experts' to create variety and seperate the stories.

BBC Radio 4 Provides indepth news coverage starting 6am through to 9am and again at 5pm through to 6.30pm. They also have the hourly headlines, these bulletins have a more serious tone.

BBC Style Guide Radio
Inside the BBC Radio Newsroom
Historic News

Online news and Newspapers

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Online News

Websites belonging to broadcast news channels such as sky news run in conjunction with the TV side.

Sky News Online offers:
Continuous live streaming of breaking news
Video reports from news bulletins
Radio News bulletins on the hour from Sky news radio.

These websites also provide an audience with the opportunity to interact:
By submitting their opinions via online polls and feedback area
With the presenters with their online blogs. (These online polls are often included in evening new bulletins)
Viewers are also able to submit camera footage that maybe included on the website.
Download Pod casts.

Regional and Local News Websites

Pudsey Today is 1 of 14 local websites for the Leeds area. It is part of the same family as the Pudsey times, Yorkshire Post and Yorkshire Evening Post newspapers.

The news items featured on the website are provided mainly from local community groups and sports clubs etc.. If somebody summits a story, the author gets to have their name published in the byline. Bigger news items are provided by reporters from the free weekly paper, 'The Pudsey Times' and also from reporter content provided by the 'Yorkshire Post Newspaper'.

The Yorkshire Post website amend stories by their reporters for publishing on the website. A lot of these stories are acquired via the news agency 'Press Association' News Wire. They also get stories from online press offices and via Google news alerts. The Video reports on the website are produced by the reporters from the newspaper who are also trained in filming and editing footage specifically for the website.

Codes and Conventions
Click on the picture below for details of the codes and conventions of online news sites

BBC News
BBC Editorial Guidelines

NEWSPAPERS

Stories for newspapers are gathered mainly via news agency Press association. Local newspapers also recieve stories from the public calling the newsdesk. If these stories are worthwhile they will be followed up and reported on. Reporters for the national newspapers frequently read the regional papers and will often run an extended report that first appeared in a regional newspaper first.

News coverage varies wildly between publications.

There are several different types of newspapers, including free weekly papers (local), Free dailies (Metro), National and regional dailies and Sunday papers. These newspapers fit into two categories - Tabloid and Broadsheet.

Codes and Conventions

Click on the picture below for details of the codes and conventions used in newspapers:

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