News Basics WHAT

is news?

Dianne Smith, CJE

Alief Hastings HS

Houston, TX

What is news?News is difficult to define

because it has many variables

•News must be factual, yet not all facts are news.

•News may be opinion, especially that of a prominent person or an authority on a particular subject.

•News is primarily about people, what they say and do.

•News is not necessarily a report of a recent event, as stated in most dictionaries.

•What is news for one school or community may not be news for another.

•What is news today may not be news tomorrow.

•What is news for one person may not be news for another person.

•Two factors necessary to news, interest and importance, are not always synonymous.

Hard News and

Soft NewsJournalists today often refer to “hard” news and “soft” news.

Hard news:•is important to large numbers of people

•is timely

•usually about events in government, politics, foreign affairs, education, labor, religion, courts, etc.

Soft news:•usually less important because it entertains, although it may also inform

•often less timely than hard news

•includes human interest and feature stories which may relate to hard news

•appeals more to emotions than to the intellect or the desire to be informed

Hard news, despite its importance, usually attracts fewer readers because it may not be as interesting as soft news or may be more difficult to understand.

Readers may not understand its significance. Reporters must be careful to include information to help the reader understand what the story means.

Many stories are a combination of hard and soft news, and may present some of the information in sidebars and infographics.

Three factors:

•Facts

•Interest

•Readers

are essential to news.

The following triangle shows the idea that the basis of all news is FACT.

The job of the reporter is to make facts interesting to a particular group of readers.

Inte

rest

Fact

Readers

News must be factual.•News is based on actual occurrences, situations, thoughts and ideas.

•Yet not all facts are news.

News must be interesting.•But not all facts are interesting.

•Different facts will be interesting to different readers.

News has qualities that distinguish it from nearly all other forms of writing.

I.

It must be accurate.

Factual accuracy•Every statement

•every name

•every date

•every age

•every address

•every quote

Accuracy of General

ImpressionThe general impression--the way the details are put together and what type of emphasis is put on the details--should be accurate. Reporters should not distort the importance of a fact by giving it too much attention.

Accuracy is difficult to achieve because

•there are so many facts that go into a story

•reporters must work fast to meet deadlines

•many people are involved in producing the finished story: the reporter, copy reader, editors, typists, etc.

Reporters must work hard to achieve accuracy.They must check, double-check and re-check every fact.

Reporters must question their sources carefully.•Informants sometimes misinform, although rarely on purpose.

•School reporters sometimes don’t ask the right questions to get the information they need for a story.

•Reporters should “talk out” stories with assignment editors to make sure they understand questions that need to be asked.

II.

It is balanced.

Balance in a news story is a matter of emphasis and completeness.Reporters must give each fact its proper emphasis, putting it into its proper relationship to every other fact and establishing its relative importance to the main idea or focus of the story.

News is considered balanced and complete when all significant details are included and have proper relationship to each other.

The purpose of balance is to give the reader a fair understanding of the event, not a detailed account of every fact.

III.

It is objective.

•News is a factual report, not a report of how the reporter thought something should have been.

•A reporter must report news as impartially and honestly as possible.

•Objectivity is difficult to achieve because a reporter’s own opinions and feelings can easily interfere with factual presentation in stories.

IV.

It is concise and clear.

Hard news stories almost always follow the inverted pyramid and are written concisely and clearly so that the meaning is clear to an average reader.

Inverted Pyramid

Most important facts

Next most important

Next most important

Next

V.

It is recent.

Timeliness is of major importance in this era of fast communication.Other factors being equal, a news editor will choose one story over another because of its timeliness.

News elements help to make

facts interesting to

people.

Immediacy or timeliness•Most essential element of news

•Reporters emphasize most recent or newest angle of story.

ProximityReaders are more interested in an event geographically near them than in one far removed

Reporters emphasize the local angle whenever possible

Consequence•A story that affects every reader will have more consequence than one that affects only a few.

Reporters emphasize the angle of the story that will impact most readers

Prominence•Names make news. Include as many as possible.

The more prominent a particular name, place, event or situation, the more interest the story will have.

Drama•adds color and vitality to a story.

•The more dramatic a story, the more appealing it is to the readers.

Mystery, suspense, comedy, the unusual, the bizarre are chief elements of drama.

Oddity/ Unusualness•The greater the degree of unusualness in a story, the greater its news value.

“Firsts”, “lasts”, and “onlys” have been staples of newspapers since the 19th century.

Conflict•appears frequently in news stories.

•Inherent in sports stories, war news, crime news, violence, domestic disputes, government bodies.

Conflict•can be physical or mental. (Ideas can be in conflict).

•Can involve man vs. man, man vs. nature, man vs. animal or animal vs. animal.

Sex•news element present in stories of romance, marriage, divorce and other relationships.

The treatment of sex varies widely from publication to publication.

Emotions, instincts•Readers enjoy stories that appeal to their emotions.

Generally the most widely read stories in the newspaper, and most widely discussed of those heard on radio or television.

•Stories about the home-less, babies needing trans-plants, a 4-year-old girl abandoned in freezing wea-ther who must have her legs amputated, baby girls rescued from wells, some-one winning the lottery

Progress•Involves any significant change for the betterment of mankind.

•May refer to achievement in the laboratory, industrial plant, legislative body, etc.

May refer to success in treating AIDS patients, etc.

Impact•How will a particular event affect the readers?

•Similar to consequence, but stronger, more personal

A number of factors modify the importance of news elements in actual practice.

•The policy of a news publication may increase or decrease the importance of a story.

•The class of readers may determine what is news for a publi-cation.

•The amount of space available may determine if a particular story is told briefly or in detail.

Timing may alter the value of a news story. All news is in competition with the news available at the moment.

•Previous publication may change a story’s value.

•Censorship, particularly in war time or times of national crisis, may change news value, sometimes keeping stories from being published for long periods of time.

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