Nov 04 2009
News Definition
+ Relevance: for an event to be reported it must be seen to affect,
however indirectly, the lives of the audience.
• Timeliness: stories tend to stress what is happening now rather than
reflect past events. Events that take place at times when they can be
easily monitored are favoured.
• Simplification: stories that can be told in straightforward unambiguous
terms that are easy to understand.
• Predictability: stories that deal with events known about in advance
like anniversaries, the release of the latest unemployment figures, or
state occasions (diary jobs).
• Unexpectedness: something that is unusual or rarely happens.
• Continuity: stories where the initial event has repercussions that affect
people, as with the fuel protests in September 2000 when protestors
issued a 60-day ultimatum to the government and there was a need
for regular updates on what was happening.
• Composition: news editors like to provide a range of different types
of stories in each bulletin so sometimes an item will be included to
‘balance’ the bulletin to provide a mix, for example of national and
local news.
• Elite people: items concerning well-known personalities from politics,
sport and show business are favoured over ‘ordinary’ people.
• Elite nations: events in ‘first-world’ countries, especially the USA and
Europe, are favoured over those in developing nations.
• Negativity: ‘bad news’ is generally deemed more interesting than
‘good news’ so stories about disasters, crime and scandal feature
highly.
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