News Values

News Values

News values is the analysis of international news stories to find out what factors they had in common and what the content is about to see if it would be placed at the top of the news agenda world.  To decide what is placed at the top of the news agenda, a “scoring system” was created to judge stories would be placed highest to lowest. Every media organisation will have its own news values, based upon what stories their audience expects and which stories are important to the type of newspaper the organisation is.

The news values are based upon the following;

Negativity- this is stories that involve bad news such as death, tragedy, violence, damage, natural disasters, political upheaval or simply extreme weather conditions. An example of negative news is the storms and floods that have taken place in the UK down south, mainly Somerset, Gloucestershire and Norfolk. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25944823 .Negative news is always rated above ‘positive stories’ because it means that more newspapers will be sold because the audience seems to like reading about other people’s misfortune.

Proximity- this is how close a story is to home. The audience supposedly relate more to stories that are close to them geographically or involve people from their own country or those that are reported that way. Metro Radio focuses on stories in their regional area because people relate more.

Recency- since newspapers is very competitive about breaking news they like to reveal stories whilst the event is still happening. This is important because if one organisation reveals a story before anyone else, other newspapers and radio stations may refer back to the original story that was written and they tend to copy the story as well. An example of recency is the death of actor Phillip Seymour- Hoffman- http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-26009575

Currency- this is the opposite too recency, in that stories that have been in the public eye for some time already are deemed valuable. Some news stories may run for weeks, months or even years and remain ‘valuable’ to news providers. Madeline McCann is an example of a currency story because even the littlest bit of news makes front page. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25945924

Continuity- this is events that are likely to have a continuing impact on readers and have a high value when the story breaks. Since it develops into an ongoing narrative most radio stations will say “tune in tomorrow for more information” whereas newspapers will put another story on the front page the next day. ‘Operation Yewtree’ is an example of continuity as there is more developments within the scandal http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25968138

Uniqueness- is a story that you wouldn’t really expect to be covered since it is unusual or unique event. A good example of uniqueness stories that are covered can be found on Weekly World News. http://weeklyworldnews.com/

Simplicity- stories that is easy to explain such as a cat being stuck up a tree because it is simple to explain. Organisations prefer stories like this over stories such as the EU economy. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26014387.

Personality- this is stories that are presented around a particular person because they can be presented from a ‘human interest’ angle. This is loved by newspapers particularly if the person involved is well-known.  Some news value has become distorted and people say that organisations over-rate personality stories especially if they involve celebrities such as Miley Cyrus, Kate Middleton and David Beckham. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-25910003

Expectedness- this is stories which are normally expected to happen such as violence at a demonstration or horrific civilian casualties in a terrorist attack. The event matches the expectations of the news organisation and audience. If a news story conforms to the preconceived ideas of the people covering it, then it has expectedness as an important news value. When a Derby Day comes around, there is always trouble expected that is why half the city is in lockdown and there is so many police in the city.

Elite Nations/People is stories relating to people being killed in genocide in another country that is not relevant to Britain. It is estimated that around 200,000 people have been killed and 500,000 people displaced in Darfur over the past decade. We do not hear about this because it is not an important nation so the news value is very low. Any story which covers an important, powerful nation (or organisation) has greater news values.

Exclusivity is a major factor for news organisations for mainly newspapers and websites. If a newspaper or news programme is the first and only news organisation breaking a story then they will rate that very highly. The Daily Mirror printed an exclusive story about the alarming number of under-tens being treated for mental health issues: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/child-depression-scandal-ill-kids-3129996

In media, size matters. The bigger the story, the bigger the impact it has so the more people it affects. The more money and resources it involves, the higher its value. An example of a story where size matters, could be the Yewtree Operation in which a number of male celebrities have been taken in for questioning over historic sexual abuse.