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Deciding What is News

Deciding What is News. Chapter 3. News Judgment. It is the journalist’s job to evaluate what’s out there and make decisions on what to print. They look at what will: Interest, inform, educate, amuse, or amaze the audience. They must balance between:

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Deciding What is News

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  1. Deciding What is News Chapter 3

  2. News Judgment • It is the journalist’s job to evaluate what’s out there and make decisions on what to print. • They look at what will: • Interest, inform, educate, amuse, or amaze the audience. • They must balance between: • What the audience wants and what it needs.

  3. News Judgment • Journalists must use news judgment (their own good sense) • How do you get good news judgment? • Through experience, reading newspapers and magazines, watching news, looking at the internet, and through hard work.

  4. Shortcut to News Judgment • The “Who Cares?” Method • Asking yourself who cares about this story, person, event, or issue. • If you can honestly say there is interest…then you have news. • If there is neither interest nor need, skip it. • As always, taste is an important issue—you do not want to offend your audience.

  5. The Elements of News • There are specific guidelines that help you tell what is important news: • Timeliness • Proximity • Prominence • Consequence • Human Interest • Conflict

  6. Timeliness • Relates to the newness of the facts. • It is the element that makes a story about Football more timely in October than June. • A story lacks timeliness for the school news if the daily newspaper already covered the story.

  7. Proximity • Refers to the nearness of a given event to your place of publication • Events occurring in your school have more news value than those in other parts of the world. • People like to read about things they are familiar with.

  8. Prominence • Refers to the “newsworthiness” of an individual • If the star quarterback fails a test, it is more prominent than if you fail a test. • His failure may cost the school a game, your failure does not have as far reaching effects for many people.

  9. Consequence • Refers to the importance of an event • In the quarterback example, his flunking the exam is more important because of the consequences—more people have an interest in this. • Some stories that include consequence are state/national stories that can be localized because of the consequences.

  10. Human Interest • These stories cause readers to laugh or cry, to feel emotion. • These stories are usually unusual • They are about the shortest basketball player, the fifteen-year-old genius who graduates from college, the bride who gets lost and ends up at the wrong church.

  11. Conflict • Enters into many stories • Conflict involves tension, surprise, and suspense. • These are stories that include: • Who will win the game? • Who will win the election?

  12. Other factors • Other news elements include: • Money, disaster, novelty, oddity, emotions, drama, animals, and children. • Keep in mind that news judgment rarely involves matching an event with a list of elements. • Determining news value is not an exact science

  13. Generating News Story Ideas • One way is to hold brainstorming sessions: • This method allows you to come up with numerous ideas within a short span of time. • It is important that as a staff, you make good use of the brainstorming sessions—you don’t have a lot of time, so use it well.

  14. Brainstorming Sessions • First, have a group leader explain the problem to be considered. • Give people a few minutes of “think time” and have them jot down their ideas. • Next, the group leader calls on each participant, one at a time, to state their ideas.

  15. Brainstorming Sessions • There should be no discussion or criticism of any idea presented. • As each idea is given, a group recorder writes down each idea. • Go around the group 2-3 times—tell everyone to have more than one idea in mind—tell the participants to really use their imaginations.

  16. Brainstorming Sessions • After exhausting all of the ideas, begin to narrow your list to a list of top priorities (be careful not to lose control) • There is still no discussion of the list. • Have the group look over the suggestions.

  17. Brainstorming Sessions • Have every participant select the best five ideas—don’t let people try to influence each other; each person should evaluate the list on their own. • Compile the answers • Take the best choices as determined by “secret ballot” and put them into action.

  18. Advantages of Brainstorming • Every staff member gets to participate. • No one person can dominate the discussion • A large number of ideas can be generated in a short amount of time. • It is easy and keeps getting easier with practice.

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