News Values

THE GROUND RULES FOR DECIDING WHAT MAKES A GOOD STORY.

News Values
The somewhat mythical set of criteria employed by journalists to measure and therefore to judge the newsworthiness of events
- Franklin, Hamer, Hanna, Kinsey, Richardson. Key Concepts in Journalism.

Somewhat Mythical
These ground rules may not be written down or codified by the news organisations, but they exist in daily practice and in knowledge gained on the job.
Harcup T. and O'Neill D. (2001) What is News? Galtung and Ruge Revisited

Defining News Values

The two methods for collating News Values
COLLATING NEWS VALUES

Summary

Journalists experience

Summary

The Academic Approach; summarizing the themes of a sample news report after it is written. In essence working backwards.

Summary

Galtung & Ruge

12 News Values

Summary

Galtung & Ruge

1960 CONGO 1960 CUBA 1964 CYPRUS

Summary

Galtung & Ruge

Frequency Intensity Unambiguity Meaningfulness Predictability Unexpectedness Continuity Composition References to elite peoples References to elite nations

Personification
Negativity

Summary

Galtung & Ruge Frequency

Events being favoured over processes.

Summary

Galtung & Ruge Composition

A fair balance of stories.

Summary

Galtung & Ruge Personification

Adding a Human Element.

Summary

Galtung & Ruge Negativity.

Bad news is better than good news.

Summary

Galtung & Ruge

The more an event satisfies these criteria the more likely it is of being reported as news.

Defining News Values

The two methods for collating News Values
COLLATING NEWS VALUES

Summary

Journalists experience

Journalists experience

The summary of factors that journalists believe make a good story. Defining the factors that journalists try find in their stories.

Journalists expreience

Alistair Hetherington
Former Editor of The Guardian and journalists for nearly 20 years.

Journalists expreience

Alistair Hetherington

7 News Values

Journalists expreience

Alistair Hetherington
Significance Drama Surprise

Personalities
Sex

Numbers
Proximity

Journalists expreience

Alistair Hetherington

anything which threatens peoples peace, prosperity, and well being is news and likely to make headlines.

Journalists expreience

Alistair Hetherington

The instinctual news value of most journalists simply is: does this interest me?

Updated Studies Harcup & ONeil

Criticism of the 12 values

by focusing on coverage of three major international crises Galtung and Ruge ignored day-today coverage of lesser, domestic and bread-andbutter news -Harcup &Oneil 2001

Harcup & ONeil

10 News Values

Harcup & ONeil

Reference to the power elite.
Individuals, organizations and nations.

Harcup & ONeil

Reference to celebrity.

Harcup & ONeil

Entertainment.
Sex, human interest, drama.

Harcup & ONeil

Surprise.

Harcup & ONeil

Good News.
Rescues, personal triumph.

Harcup & ONeil

Bad News.
Tragedy, accident.

Harcup & ONeil

Magnitude.

Harcup & ONeil

Relevance.
Cultural proximity, political importance.

Harcup & ONeil

Follow-up stories.

Harcup & ONeil

Newspapers agenda.
Politically and structurally.

Public Interest versus Public Demand

Deciding a potential storys newsworthiness properly could include both the commercial profits of selling newspapers and the responsibility to deliver stories in the public Interest. Both mean making editorial decisions and are at the mercy of gate-keeping.

Critiscism of fixed News Values

News values are one of the most opaque structures of meaning in modern society. All true journalists are supposed to possess it: few can or are willing to identify and define it. Journalists speak of the news as if events select themselves. We appear to be dealing, then, with a deep structure whose function as a selective device is untransparent even to those who professionally most know how to operate it. -Hall, 1973

Evolving News Values

News values are thus working rules, comprising a corpus of occupational lore which implicitly and often expressly explains and guides newsroom practice. It is not true as is often suggested that they are beyond the ken of the newsman, himself unable and unwilling to articulate them. Indeed, they pepper the daily exchanges between journalists in collaborative production procedures. -Golding and Elliott (1999)

Whos Values?
There have been numerous attempts to distil the essence of [newsworthy] qualities of events, although there are some fundamental reasons why it is impossible to reach any definitive account of news values that has great predictive or explanatory value in accounting for any particular example of news selection

Whos Values?
One problem lies in the fact that value has to be attributed and there are competing sources of perception. Although by definition, journalists and editors are the most influential judges of value (since they decide on relative value), the actual perceptions of diverse audiences cannot be ignored, nor can the views of powerful sources and others affected by the news. -McQuail (2000)

A quantifiable definition.
Frequency Intensity Unambiguity Personalities Meaningfulness Predictability Significance Drama Continuity Composition References to elite peoples References to elite nations

Surprise

Sex
Numbers

Personification
Negativity

Unexpectedness Proximity

Personal News Values

impact; power; impact; impact and consequences; significance, magnitude; impact on nation and national interest; impact on large numbers of people; significance for the past and future; threshold; disasters, actual and averted; disasters abroad; negativity ; bad news; disasters; good or bad social effects); crisis; consequence; scale of events; significance; tragedies and accidents; number of people affected -(warner, 1970). (gans, 1979) (macdougall in palmer, 1998), (herbert, 2000)