"When a dog bites a man that is not news, but when a man bites a dog that is news." - Charles Anderson Dana
Unfortunately today’s blog will consist of a lot of lists. I
enjoy making lists in order to give the illusion that I’m organised. I will also re-write things in terms that I
understand, be it wrong or right.
Alright so, what are news values?
Impact- Things that make you go “Gee Whiz” or if you’re not
from the 50’s, a simple “wow” will suffice.
Audience identification- “If it’s local it leads”
Pragmatics- Practical stuff, how to lose 50kg on the lentil
diet, why your house is a death trap, Today Tonight and other such garbage.
Yeah?
Source influence- The dreaded PR and its increasing
influence on journalism
News values are commonly known as newsworthiness.
Different institutions and individual journalists play roles
in shaping their own news values. They are also shaped by social and cultural
contexts. For example, ‘The Sun’ over in the UK is known to be a tabloid style
newspaper. Is this because ‘The Sun’ has a specific set of values they want to
perpetuate or is it because the journalists enjoy writing about this sort of
thing or is it the fact that society enjoys reading about the next Lady Gaga v
Madonna scandal?
I think Judy McGregor sums it up when she says, “Journalists
do not adhere to formal codes of newsworthiness that can be identified or
promulgated... instead, the informal code of what constitutes a good story is
part of newsroom initiation and socialisation.”
There have been over half a dozen attempts to define what is
newsworthy, however I think O’Neill and Harcup sum up what is newsworthy in 2012
quite nicely.
It’s all about:
1. The power elite
2.
Celebrity
3.
Entertainment
4.
Surprise
5.
Bad news
6.
Good news
7.
Magnitude
8.
Relevance
9.
Follow-up
10. Newspaper agenda
I am particularly against the fact that the power elite and
celebrities get a shoe in when it comes to the news. In “Famous” magazine and
“Women’s Weekly” sure, write ‘til your heart’s content but the six o’clock
bulletin, just no. I don’t care that Justin Bieber is in Australia, I
appreciate that people do care, hence it is polluting my commercial news, however
I think it reflects poorly on the culture we’re becoming. It also saddens me
that we, myself included, get some sort of perverted thrill out of bad news. When
I hear about a tragic tsunami overseas, I expect to hear extravagant death
tolls and feel somewhat disappointed when I hear there are only ten. You may
think that is wrong but I’m sure some do it too, it’s as if it’s not worth
talking about unless it’s catastrophic.
So what are the threats to these news values?
Lazy, incompetent journalism. Ouch. Yes, that stings a
little considering most of us want to become these lazy, incompetent people
however I don’t think it’s too far off. Like Downie and Kaiser said, “too much
of what has been offered as news in recent years has been untrustworthy,
irresponsible, misleading or incomplete.” PR influence and Tabloidisation is
also threatening our beloved news values. As summed up by Davies in the
PowerPoint “... media falsehood and distortion; PR tactics and propaganda; and
the use of illegal news-gathering techniques.”
*Cough* Phone hacking scandal
*Cough*. In reality though, I never realised how much
PR had infiltrated the news. Churnalism.com is a website where you can paste in
a news article and it will tell you how much of it was taken from press
releases and media statements ect. It is a very entertaining and eye-opening
site, perfect for exam block procrastination.
In a nutshell every culture, city, station and journalist
has their own set of news values. Some good, some not so good. I feel that it
is a rather subjective sort of thing; it’s what makes people pick up a trash
magazine or watch SBS instead. There are
a few threats to these values that people need to be more aware of and PR is
definitely one of them. Take everything you read with a grain of salt, because,
like what will be discussed next week, everyone has their own agenda.
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