Wk 9: News Values

News values are a topic I have always found very interesting. The ways that events are selected and reported has, in the past, given the newsrooms of the world a totalitarian structure. The public only consumed the information newsrooms and governments felt was important. With the introduction of the Internet and citizen journalism, news stories have begun to change. The basic news values however have remained relatively similar throughout time.

In this lecture I learnt that news values will change depending on the audience. For example Fox Sports reporters will not speak about NASA developments, and Channel Seven News won’t report on the Gai Jatra festival in Nepal. News values are dominated by the culture and social expectations of their audience.

Of all the sets of values shown in this lecture, I thought the 12+ Factors drawn up by Galtung and Ruge in 1965 were the most valid, although as we were taught sometimes certain values rule out others. Below I have set them out with what I think are valid examples of each news value.

1.Negativity: bad news is always rated above good news

Eg: Morocco Bombings vs The Royal Wedding

On the night of the Royal Wedding of Kate and William, the Morocco bombings did not even make Channel Seven News. In this case, Good news was seen as more important than bad, or perhaps the elite overruled the general public. 

2.  Proximity: audiences relate to stories or people that are close to home

Eg: Allison Baden-Clay Brisbane Times vs Allison Baden-Clay BBC

This link shows the search results for 'Baden-Clay' on the Brisbane Times website and the results of the same search on the BBC's website. This shows us how proximity effects  the news stories presented. 

3. Recency: news rooms are always competitive with breaking news

Eg: Program interruption for the 9/11 bombings. See 1 min 55 seconds

4. Currency: stories which have been run may continue though uneventful.

Eg: Recaps of the Daniel Morcombe story. 

This link shows a story related to the abduction of Daniel, even though he disappeared in 2003 and nothing of huge import has happened  to this case for 9 years. 

5. Continuity: stories which have a continuing impact

Eg: The War in Iraq for Australians

This link shows the end of  series of news stories on the Australian presence in Iraq. The stories on this war have continued due to their continual relationship and impact on Australian people. 

6. Uniqueness: Stories with a WOW factor

Eg: A man eats another man's face off in Miami

7. Simplicity: Stories which are easy to explain

Eg: Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth engaged

8. Personality: Revolve around one person (celebrity news)

Eg: Charlie Sheen's series of issues

9. Expectedness: News which is expected or assumed to happen

Eg: Suicide car bomb in Baghdad 

This link is an example of news which is expected, and expected to be reported on. 

10. Elite: Powerful nations, people or organisations

Eg: USA Election Process

This link shows how stories with little proximity can become news worthy is elite nations or people are involved. Their importance makes the news important to us.

11. Exclusivity: Stories which news channels or papers have sole rights to

Eg: Exclusive performance of a little girl on Today Tonight

To make this story seem more newsworthy, this story was deemed 'exclusive'.... even though it's just a little girl doing a dance in too much make-up. 

12. Size: Size and impact, or ‘threshold’ matters to news story’s success

Eg: Obama chosen as first African-American President in America

The news values defined by Galtung and Ruge are very real and many examples of them can be found in news today. Perhaps these values will change further as time goes on, and news becomes more personal.