News and Politics - What Constitutes News

News and Politics - What Constitutes News

News And Politics Week 2 - What Constitutes News

What is news?

Macquarie Dictionary Definition

  • A report of any recent event, situation etc.
  • The report of events published in a newspaper, journal, radio, television or any other medium.
  • Information, events considered as suitable reporting.

However, everybody has their own interpretation of what they consider to be news or news worthy.

William Randolph Hearst said news is “Anything that makes the reader say ‘gee whiz!’”

Turner Catledge said news is “Anything you can find out today that you didn’t know before”.

John B Bogart said:
”When a dog bites a man, that is not news because it happens so often. But if a man bites a dog, it’s news.”

Clearly a combination of all these definitions is true However, what is important for you is to develop an eye for what is news and what is not. As Conley says:

“Being able to recognize the difference between news and something that only resembles news is the difference between a good journalist and a lousy one.”

Newsworthiness

To be a discerning news consumer you need to understand newsworthiness. Newsworthiness is essentially determined by 8 news values. These are:

  1. Impact
  2. Conflict
  3. Timeliness
  4. Proximity
  5. Prominence
  6. Currency
  7. Human Interest
  8. The Unusual

All stories are made up of at least one, but more likely many of these news values.

When a journalist goes out gathering news, these are the things the journalist looks for. These are the factors that differentiate between a great story and a crappy story.

  1. Impact
  2. Impact is often consider to be the most important news value
  3. If you write a story that lacks impact, there is a great chance that people will simply not read it.
  4. Impact is the wow factor.
  5. When the space shuttle Columbia exploded we went ‘wow’. When the planes flew in to the Twin Towers in NYC we went ‘wow’.
  6. If you read a news story and you find you want to keep on reading that story then that story has impact.
  7. Conflict
  8. Stories conflict cover all kinds of disagreement issues.
  9. It could be something dramatic as the war in Iraq, the terrorism attacks in London or Indonesia, or something trivial like the rumored narkiness among the stars on desperate housewives or the split between Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston.
  10. Tabloid journalism loves conflict. Today Tonight and A Current Affair always features families in conflict, neighbours in conflict, so-called David and Goliath battles.
  11. Timeliness
  12. Timeliness relates to the when factor.
  13. If you work for a daily newspaper then timeliness is a crucial news value for you.
  14. People buy news paper to be kept up-to-date, not to receive old news
  15. Timeliness is often linked to the value of currency.
  16. Earlier this year after the tsunami disaster there were numerous stories of relief operations, tsunamis and body identification theser were timely given the catastrophic event.
  17. Proximity
  18. Proximity generally relates to locality
  19. For example, for the GCB, stories on the coastal strip between Jacobs well and Byron Bay are important. For the Courier-Mail it’s Queensland
  20. However, there are times when proximity extends internationally. For example, the bombing of the Australian embassy in Indonesia or the Bali bombings were news because the target was an Australian Building, in a neighbouring country
  21. Proximity does not always relate to geographical distances. Conley says “Definitions of proximity can reflect ethnic and cultural bias within media and the community at large.”
  22. Prominence
  23. Prominence usually relates to a high profile person. The prominence can be a at a local, state, national or international level. They can be film stars, politicians, sports stars, community leaders.
  24. There is a widespread cliché that names makes news. In one sense this is very true. All we need to do is cast our minds back a fortnight to the highprofile wedding of Lleyton Hewitt and Bec Cartwright and the media frenzy this event created.
  25. Prominence can relate to the power of importance of the position a person holds. Conley says prominence normally relates more to position then personality.
  26. Prominence can also relate to events. Some prominent events can include the Olympic Games, World Championships, high-profile football finals These events can also be political eg, an election.
  27. Currency
  28. Is normally associated with controversy or trends
  29. When currency is overdone it can become stale and very boring. For example how many stories do we see on weight loss or weight-related issues, plastic surgery, genetically-modified chickens, wayward youths, neighbours from hell etc.
  30. Human Interested
  31. Is an a ambiguous news value
  32. This is not normally associated with hard news and is often related to in feature articles.
  33. However human interests issues can be found in the hard news pages of a newspaper for example, there may be concern about a health product or a drug.
  34. Often relates to social and family issues
  35. Unusual
  36. This is also known as oddity and is news that includes weird, quirky and strange events.
  37. It relates to any story out of the ordinary. It is not always whack and can include hard news.
  38. These can be hard news such as the tsunami or more off-beat such as a bizarre medical condition or an unusual event such as the nude Olympics.

Conley says that associated with these values are the standard parameters a reporter considers when writing a story. These are simply known as the 5 W’s and the H.

  1. Who
  2. What
  3. When
  4. Why
  5. Where
  6. How

News and Politics Week 2 – Sources of News

  1. Tip-off’s. Tip-off’s usually come from contacts a journalist has established, however, they can also come from anonymous people who ring your newspaper about an issue
  2. Public relations events.
  3. Pre-scheduled public events. These can include all manner of activities including parliament, a local council meeting, court hearings, to public demonstrations.
  4. Follow ups. These are stories that put a new angle on a previously published story they DON’T just regurgitate a story but they provide new information on certain issues.
  5. The wire service such as AAP could be the lead for a story, other services such as tuning into a police scanner.

However news can be also incredibly unpredictable. A plane might crash, a prominent person dies, a terrorist strikes. These are also a key source of news that needs to be covered.

Ten Tips for News Gathering.

  1. Keep your eyes open. There are notice boards across the campus that advertise a range of clubs, events and issues on campus. Be informed what’s going on.
  2. Stay informed with external relations. There are constantly press releases and events are displayed on the Griffith Website. Don’t just ignore them – find out what is going on.
  3. Check out unusual clubs on campus. Use club sign-on day to check out what clubs exist on campus. There might be a new or interesting group for you to do a story on.
  4. Be on the look-out for any guest lectures or speakers who might be visiting GU. In the past a range of speakers including politicians, religious leaders and academics have visited campuses.
  5. Be informed about university issues. Read student publications like Getamungsitit. Grab a cop of the Griffith Gazette to find out what’s happening across all campuses. The Griffith Gazette also features a diary of upcoming events across all campuses.
  6. Read Wednesday’s edition of The Australian which features a higher education lift out with information about tertiary stuff.
  7. Don’t limit yourself to events on your campus. Griffith has 6 campuses.
  8. Ask questions, if there’s a new building being build on your campus, find out what it’s for. If there are new courses and facilities, find out what they are. Griffith is continually adding new courses
  9. Talk to other students and ask them if they have any problems on campus. Look at your own experience with parking, enrolment, library fines etc. often students complain about something without realizing it is a potentially story
  10. Start developing contacts with people on campus. Talk to the person at the Coffee Roaster, or the library, or the staff and students club. They may become your tip off source.