News Values
Why are news values important?
News values guide what is selected as news in the first place (for example why 'people made homeless by the tsunami' is more newsworthy than 'people made homeless by earthquakes in Pakistan').
News values lie behind the emphasis a particular story receives. They help decide why a story is the lead item on television news, They shape the tone and tenor of the item and so on.
How do journalists learn news values?
Journalists often say that they agree on key news values, and that these are understood implicitly within newsrooms.
But these news values are rarely discussed publicly by journalists, nor do the public necessarily understand them.
How do journalists select and present the news on a daily basis?
Journalists talk about events being “newsworthy” . Good journalists have a good nose for news.
They often use a 'public interest' defence for controversial news coverage. The service of the fourth estate in exploring issues of 'public interest' is argued to be one foundational principle for democratic information and debate.
Journalists overwhelmingly learn what is 'newsworthy' from working in newsrooms with senior journalists and through newsroom socialisation, rather than from reflection and study.
They learn from “doing”. Senior newsroom editors direct them to write stories that are then subedited by senior staff who decide which are published, adapted or rejected.
What are news values?
Forty years ago two Scandinavian researchers (Galtung and Ruge) looked at international news coverage and developed a list of factors. They said - the more an event satisfied particular conditions, the more likely it would be selected as news. If the conditions are inter-related and work together the newsworthiness is amplified.
They lay out nine general factors for what makes an event 'news':
1. FREQUENCY- the more similar the frequency of the event is to the frequency of the news medium, the more likely it is to be recorded as news by that news medium (This partly drives the scoop factor of the news media, being “first” with a story that “breaks” close to deadline).
2. THRESHOLD - an event has to reach a certain threshold before it becomes news- a small tremor might not be news whereas a sizable earthquake reaches the threshold to be reported. A house burglary might not be crime news but a violent murder will be. The intensity of an event/issue is important, too. The more violent a demonstration or murder, the more newsworthy it becomes.
3. LACK OF AMBIGUITY- the news media like things to be black or white rather than shades of grey because it is easier to report in a short time and with the available space in a newspaper or time in a television or radio news hour. It is also easier to present something as a “fact” than as an assumption or a belief.
4. MEANINGFULNESS - has two elements both linked-cultural proximity and ethnocentrism- which mean that the more an event is linked to the cultural norms and values of a country or audience the more meaningful they are likely to be. For example, the headlines relating to a summit on Islamic unity and on dengue fever outbreaks are meaningful in Malaysia but may not be in another country.
5. RELEVANCE- refers to the level of meaning implied for news audiences even if an event happened in culturally distant places. Modern terrorism, for example, is relevant to us all because while we might not directly experience it we all suffer from fear and anxiety that we, our families and friends and others might be victims.
6. CONSONANCE- relates to audience expectations. Journalists instinctively gauge audience appetites for particular stories by guessing two things-the predictive factor and the desire factor. Since 9/11 there has been prediction of further unexpected, random attacks so if it does happen then journalists would predict that the event would be more newsworthy because audiences will have a mental matrix for easy reception of the event. Audiences wanting something to happen are equally as prepared and receptive to news about the event. The desire factor is most evident in sports victories, expressions of nationalism, and in politics.
7. UNEXPECTEDNESS- Events/ issues chosen as news are unexpected, unpredictable or rare - the world’s oldest mother, 9/11, the tsunami etc.
8. CONTINUITY- refers to the idea that once something has entered the cycle of news, becomes a headline and been defined as “news, then it will continue to be news until almost equally as mysteriously it disappears from the news cycle. Very often once one newspaper or television broadcast defines an event or issue as news the others follow with updates, counter stories, follow-ups, other sides of the story etc.
9. COMPOSITION- this is simply the idea that every television news broadcast or front page has a recipe or design that mixes stories and types of stories with visual elements and contrasts “hard” and “soft” news. Composition links to marketing of news.
Four extra culture-bound news values were identified by researchers looking at the news media of developed countries. These were:
- The more the event concerned ELITE NATIONS, the more probably it would become a news event- the international coverage of the United States, for example, compared with coverage of China’s foreign policy.
- The more the event referred to ELITE PEOPLE the more likely it would become a news event, for example the Kennedy assassination and the death of Lady Diana are credited by researchers as being dominant bad news events in modern history involving globally elite people. What are some examples you can think of specific to your country?
- If an event can be PERSONALISED or PERSONIFIED it has heightened newsworthiness- this is the “human interest” factor of news.
- NEGATIVITY, the concept of “bad news sells”, which is no less real for being a cliché.
What are “new” news values?
The traditiona news values remain relevant but need to be modernised to take account of the dramatic and profound changes to the news media in the past fifty years which include:
- Pervasiveness of television and electronic media- in 1962 television was sufficiently underdeveloped that American Defense Secretary Robert McNamara did not turn on a television set during the two weeks of the Cuban missile crisis. Consider, by contrast today, the “embedded” role of the media in the Iraq invasion and the ”CNN effect”, plus “real-time” television coverage
- Increasingly commercial rationale of the news media, prompted in part by global media conglomeration
- Changed social and cultural dynamics fuelling different audience demands
- The broad sweep of technological innovation and convergence
Four new news values are suggested as additional criteria against which news is selected and presented. They are inter-related and television-driven and impact on all news formats.
They are:
1. VISUALNESS is the dominant news value of our times. Image-bite news has taken over from sound-bite news. It means that the presence of absence of visualness, and the ability of journalists to ‘get pictures’ determines whether an event is selected as news. The tsunami dominated news globally in direct proportion to the amount of amateur video footage that became available over a period of several weeks of the water surges (contrast this with Sudan). News content is limited and influenced by access and opportunity to obtain relevant visuals. In terms of international attention to human rights and torture (Third Geneva Convention) contrast Abu Ghraib prison as an issue, where still photography made the issue public and visible, with Guantanamo Bay, which has been largely inaccessible in terms of visual images.
2. EMOTION is linked to visualness and means that unless an event or an issue is accompanied by an emotional sub-text (grieving widow) then it is less likely to be selected as news. Events have heightened emotion when they have common news elements such as tragedy, human interest dilemmas, survivors, victims, children, women and animals. “Tear jerker” stories involving grief, see grieving widow headline.
3. CONFLICT is particularly evident as the news value that drives news about politics and policy issues. This means if there is not an A versus B evident in an issue then it may be considered less newsworthy because notional ideas of “balance” and “two sides to every story” cannot be satisfied.
4. “CELEBRIFICATION” OF THE JOURNALIST/PRESENTER which means that old arguments about objectivity versus subjectivity of journalists are out of date. The more a story promotes a reporter or journalist not just bringing the news as conduit but making the news as its source, the more likely the story will be selected and presented as news. The growth of the television technique, the “piece to camera” has fostered journalists as celebrities. This has been described as the “stand-up syndrome” and is related to television branding.
adapted from a presentation by Judy McGregor.