News values, sometimes called "news criteria," determine how much prominence a news story is given by a media outlet, and the attention it is given by the audience. Journalism is the profession of writing or communicating formally employed by publications and broadcasters for the benefit of a particular Community of people Professional journalism is a form of news reporting which developed in the United States at the beginning of the 20th century along with formal schools of journalism News is any new information or information on Current events which is presented by print, broadcast, Internet, or Word of mouth Reportage sometimes refers to the total body of media coverage of a particular topic or event including news reporting and analysis " the extensive reportage of recent News style (also journalistic style or news writing) is the particular Prose style used for News reporting (ie Journalism ethics and standards comprise principles of Ethics and of good practice as applicable to the specific challenges faced by professional Journalists Historically Objectivity is a significant principle of Journalistic professionalism. In Journalism, a source is a person publication or other record or document that gives information Editorial independence is the freedom of editors to make decisions without interference from the owners of a publication A journalism school is a School or department usually part of an established University, where Journalists are trained List of Journalism topics This page aims to list all topics related to the field of Journalism. Arts journalism is a branch of Journalism concerned with the reporting and discussion of the arts Business journalism is the branch of journalism that tracks records analyses and interprets the economic changes that take place in a society Entertainment journalism is an umbrella term used to describe all forms of Journalism that focus on the Entertainment business and its products Environmental journalism is the collection verification production distribution and exhibition of information regarding current events trends issues and people that are associated Fashion journalism is an umbrella term used to describe all aspects of published Fashion media Political journalism is a broad branch of Journalism that includes coverage of all aspects of Politics and Political science, although the term usually Science journalism is a relatively new branch of Journalism, which uses the art of Reporting to convey information about Science topics to a public forum Sports journalism is a form of Journalism that reports on Sports topics and events While the sports department within some Newspapers has been Tech journalism is a relatively new branch of Journalism, which uses the art of Reporting to convey information about Tech topics to a public forum Trade journalism reports on the movements and developments of the Business world by way of articles or analysis A traffic report is an element of a Radio program or TV news broadcast that informs listeners about general traffic conditions Weather forecasting is the application of science and technology to predict the state of the atmosphere for a future time and a given location Advocacy journalism is a Genre of Journalism that intentionally and transparently adopts a non-objective viewpoint usually for some social Citizen journalism, also known as public or participatory journalism or democratic journalism, is the act of citizens "playing an active role in the The civic journalism movement (also known as public journalism is according to professor David K Community journalism is locally oriented coverage that typically focuses on city neighborhoods or individual suburbs rather than metropolitan state national or world news "Gonzo" redirects here For other uses see Gonzo (disambiguation Gonzo journalism is a style of Journalism which is written Investigative journalism is a type of reporting in which reporters deeply investigate a topic of interest often involving crime Political corruption, or some other Scandal Docufiction (often understood as Docudrama) is a Neologism which refers to a cinematographic work in a Genre mixing Fiction and Narrative journalism is the interpretation of a story and the way in which the journalist portrays it be it fictional or non-fictional New Journalism was a style of 1960s and 1970s News writing and Journalism which used literary techniques deemed unconventional at the time Opinion journalism is Journalism that makes no claim of objectivity. Visual journalism is the practice of strategically combining words and images to convey information Watchdog journalism refers to forms of Activist journalism aimed at holding accountable public personalities and institutions whose functions impact social and political life The term Fourth Estate refers to the press, both in its explicit capacity of advocacy and in its implicit ability to frame political issues Fifth Estate is any class or group in society other than the Clergy ( First Estate) the Nobility ( Second Estate) the Commoners ( Freedom Constitutional or statutory protections pertaining to freedom of the press Infotainment (a Portmanteau of information and entertainment refers to a general type of media broadcast program which provides a combination of current Media bias in the United States News propaganda is Covert Propaganda packaged as credible News without transparency as to source and motivation Public relations (PR is the practice of managing the flow of Information between an Organization and its Publics Public relations - often referred Yellow journalism is Journalism that downplays legitimate news in favor of eye-catching headlines that sell more newspapers The news media refers to the section of the Mass media that focuses on presenting current News to the public A newspaper is a written Publication containing News, information and Advertising, usually printed on low-cost paper called Newsprint. Magazines, periodicals or serials are Publications generally published on a regular schedule containing a variety of articles, generally News agency (alternative A news agency is an organization of Journalists established to supply News reports to organizations in the News trade Broadcast journalism is the field of news and journals which are "broadcast" that is published by electrical methods instead of the older methods such as printed newspapers Online journalism is defined as the Reporting of facts produced and distributed via the Internet. Photojournalism is a particular form of Journalism (the collecting editing and presenting of news material for publication or broadcast that creates images in order to tell Alternative media are media (newspapers radio television movies Internet etc Video blogging, sometimes shortened to vlogging is a form of Blogging for which the medium is Video. A journalist (also called a newspaperman) is a person who practices Journalism, the gathering and dissemination of information about current events trends A reporter is a type of Journalist who Researches and presents information in certain types of Mass media. Editing Language, Images or Sound through correction condensation organization and other modifications in various media A columnist is a Journalist who writes material on a regular basis for publication in a series A photographer is a person who takes a Photograph using a Camera. Meteorology (from Greek grc μετέωρος metéōros, "high in the sky" and grc -λογία -logia) is the Interdisciplinary A. Boyd (1994) states that: “News journalism has a broadly agreed set of values, often referred to as ‘newsworthiness…”. News values are not universal and can vary widely between different cultures. In Western practice, decisions on the selection and prioritization of news are made by editors on the basis of their experience and intuition, although analysis by M. Galtung and M. Ruge (1965) showed that several factors are consistently applied across a range of news organizations. Some of these factors are listed below, together with others put forward by Schlesinger (1987) and Bell (1991). According to Ryan (1991), "there is no end to lists of news criteria" (p. 31). Among the many lists of news values that have been drawn up by scholars and journalists, some, like Galtung and Ruge's, attempt to describe news practices across cultures, while others have become remarkably specific to the press of certain (often Western) nations.
A variety of external and internal pressures influence journalists' decisions on which stories are covered, how issues are interpreted and the emphasis given to them. These pressures can sometimes lead to bias or unethical reporting. Achieving relevance, giving audiences the news they want and find interesting, is an increasingly important goal for media outlets seeking to maintain market share in a rapidly evolving market. This has made news organizations more open to audience input and feedback, and forced them to adopt and apply news values which will attract and keep audiences. The growth of interactive media and citizen journalism is fast altering the traditional distinction between news producer and passive audience and may in future lead to a deep-ploughing redefinition of what 'news' means and the role of the news industry. Citizen journalism, also known as public or participatory journalism or democratic journalism, is the act of citizens "playing an active role in the
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Conditions for News
- Frequency: Events which occur suddenly and fit well with the news organization's schedule are more likely to be reported than those which occur gradually or at inconvenient times of day or night. Long-term trends are not likely to receive much coverage.
- Negativity: Bad news is more newsworthy than good news.
- Unexpectedness: If an event is out of the ordinary it will have a greater effect than something which is an everyday occurrence.
- Unambiguity: Events whose implications are clear make for better copy than those which are open to more than one interpretation, or where any understanding of the implications depends on first understanding the complex background in which the events take place.
- Personalization: Events which can be portrayed as the actions of individuals will be more attractive than one in which there is no such "human interest. "
- Meaningfulness: This relates to the sense of identification the audience has with the topic. "Cultural proximity" is a factor here -- stories concerned with people who speak the same language, look the same, and share the preoccupations as the audience receive more coverage than those concerned with people who speak different languages, look different and have different preoccupations.
- Reference to elite nations: Stories concerned with global powers receive more attention than those concerned with less influential nations.
- Reference to elite persons: Stories concerned with the rich, powerful, famous and infamous get more coverage.
- Conflict: Opposition of people or forces resulting in a dramatic effect. Stories with conflict are often quite newsworthy.
- Consonance: Stories which fit with the media's expectations receive more coverage than those which defy them (and for which they are thus unprepared). Note this appears to conflict with unexpectedness above. However, consonance really refers to the media's readiness to report an item.
- Continuity: A story which is already in the news gathers a kind of inertia. This is partly because the media organizations are already in place to report the story, and partly because previous reportage may have made the story more accessible to the public (making it less ambiguous).
- Composition: Stories must compete with one another for space in the media. For instance, editors may seek to provide a balance of different types of coverage, so that if there is an excess of foreign news for instance, the least important foreign story may have to make way for an item concerned with the domestic news. In this way the prominence given to a story depends not only on its own news values but also on those of competing stories. (Galtung and Ruge, 1965)
- Competition: Commercial or professional competition between media may lead journalists to endorse the news value given to a story by a rival.
- Co-optation: A story that is only marginally newsworthy in its own right may be covered if it is related to a major running story.
- Prefabrication: A story which is marginal in news terms but written and available may be selected ahead of a much more newsworthy story which has to be researched and written from the ground up.
- Predictability: An event is more likely to be covered if it has been pre-scheduled. (Bell, 1991)
- Time constraints: Traditional news media such as radio, television and daily newspapers have strict deadlines and a short production cycle which select for items that can be researched and covered quickly.
- Logistics: Although eased by the availability of global communications even from remote regions, the ability to deploy and control production and reporting staff, and functionality of technical resources can determine whether a story is covered. (Schlesinger, 1987)
External pressures
Many of these observed conditions for news can be explained as products of the way the news operation works. e. g. budgetary or staffing constraints, or the suitability of the story for a particular production format; others by the way news judgments are shaped by the cultural background of the journalist, the collective norms of the organization and management policy directives.
Journalists may also be influenced by external pressures from the government or Establishment, manipulation by spin doctors, and, recently, a need to retain audience share in an increasingly fragmented and competitive market. Even the way audiences, journalists and pressure groups use language can determine how stories are written and interpreted, and the value they carry for both audience and news producer.
However, models of news evaluation based on these factors alone are incomplete; they explain how the news process works, not why it works. For instance, several of Galtung and Ruge’s factors leave questions unanswered:
- Why is bad news stronger than good news?
- Why is the unexpected newsworthy?
- Why should scale influence an event’s newsworthiness?
- Why is there a fascination for elite groups and people the audience may never meet?
- Why is human interest important in news?
Audience perceptions of news
Conventional models concentrate on what the journalist perceives as news. But the news process is a two-way transaction, involving both news producer (the journalist) and the news receiver (the audience), although the boundary between the two is rapidly blurring with the growth of citizen journalism and interactive media.
Little has been done to define equivalent factors which determine audience perception of news. This is largely because it would appear impossible to define a common factor, or factors, that generate interest in a mass audience.
Basing his judgement on many years as a newspaper journalist Hetherington (1985) states that: “…anything which threatens people’s peace, prosperity and well being is news and likely to make headlines”.
Venables (2005) suggests audiences may interpret news as a risk signal. Psychologists and primatologists have shown that apes and humans constantly monitor the environment for information that may signal the possibility of physical danger or threat to the individual’s social position. This receptiveness to risk signals is a powerful and virtually universal survival mechanism.
A 'risk signal' is characterized by two factors, an element of change (or uncertainty) and the relevance of that change to the security of the individual.
The same two conditions are observed to be characteristic of news. The news value of a story, if defined in terms of the interest it carries for an audience, is determined by the degree of change it contains and the relevance that change has for the individual or group. Analysis shows that journalists and publicists manipulate both the element of change and relevance (‘security concern’) to maximize, or some cases play down, the strength of a story.
Security concern is proportional to the relevance of the story for the individual, his or her family, social group and societal group, in declining order. At some point there is a Boundary of Relevance, beyond which the change is no longer perceived to be relevant, or newsworthy. This boundary may be manipulated by journalists, power elites and communicators seeking to encourage audiences to exclude, or embrace, certain groups: for instance, to distance a home audience from the enemy in time of war, or conversely, to highlight the plight of a distant culture so as to encourage support for aid programs.
Defining news values
The practical constraints of the newsgathering process, the collective norms of the newsroom and manipulation by external pressure groups all affect the news value given to an event by the journalist and the way it is reported. The news value given to the story by the audience, its impact or interest, is determined by the degree of change it contains and the relevance of that change to the physical and social security of the individual or group. Major change, coupled with high relevance, gives the story a correspondingly high news value; little, or slow, change, together with low relevance, indicate low news value.
Some commentators (Harcup & O’Neill, 2001) argue that as many stories are apparently manufactured, Galtung and Ruge’s list of news values should be open to question. The dominance of celebrity and social news, the blurring of the boundary between news and reality shows and other popular culture, and the advent of citizen journalism may suggest that the nature of ‘news’ and news values are evolving and that traditional models of the news process are now only partially relevant.
References
- Boyd, A. (1994) Broadcast Journalism,Techniques of Radio and TV News. Oxford: Focal.
- Galtung, J. & Ruge, M. Holmboe (1965): The Structure of Foreign News. The Presentation of the Congo, Cuba and Cyprus Crises in Four Norwegian Newspapers, Journal of Peace Research, vol. The Journal of Peace Research is a peer-reviewed Academic journal that publishes scholarly articles and book reviews in the fields of peace studies 2, pp. 64-91; online edition (JSTOR access required)
- Bell A. (1991) The Language of News Media. Oxford: Blackwell.
- Schlesinger P. (1987) Putting 'Reality' Together, 2nd edition London: Methuen.
- Hetherington A. (1985) News, Newspapers and Television. London: Macmillan, p. 40.
- Venables J. (2005) Making Headlines: News Values and Risk Signals in Journalism; also (1993) What is News? Huntingdon: ELM Publications.
- Harcup T. and O'Neill D. (2001) What is News? Galtung and Ruge Revisited Journalism Studies, vol. 2, no. 2, p. 277.
- Ryan, C. (1991) Prime Time Activism: Media Strategies for Grassroots Organizing Boston: South End Press.
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