This lecture posed the questions: What are news values? And what can be considered newsworthy? They can be defined as:
"The degree of prominence a media outlet gives to a story and the attention that is paid by an audience [as a result]"
or
"News values are one of the most opaque structures of meaning in modern society...Journalists speak of 'the news' as if events select themselves...Yet of the millions of events which occur daily in the world, only a tiny proportion ever become visible as 'potential news stories': and of this proportion, only a small fraction are actually produced as the day's news..."
or
"[News values] are fundamental to understanding news production and the choices that editors and other journalists face when deciding that one bit of information is news while another is not"
Whichever definition, news values determine that a piece of news is something with impact, audience identification, pragmatics and source influence.
I think the most agreed upon definition of news values was published in 1994 by A. Boyd; "News journalism has a broadly agreed set of values, often referred to as 'newsworthiness'..." Does a piece of news hold interest? Will it stand the test of time? News values vary across different news services and different countries and cultures. It is a very subjective discipline. Despite this, there are universal news values such as the employment of the inverted pyramid style of writing and the two phrases, "If it bleeds, it leads" (stories of notable deaths, murders, wars, accidents etc.) and "If it's local, it leads"(stories of droughts, floods, ongoing events, sports and politics).
One of the things that most stuck with me since hearing this lecture was Harold Evans' - the editor of the Sunday Times - reference to editors as the "human sieves of the torrent of news". I think, echoing the thoughts of Bruce, that it is such an intelligent and accurate depiction of the editorial discipline. More than simply instinct and logic, Bruce emphasised the importance of experience in journalism. More significant than promulgated codes of newsworthiness is the "informal code of what constitutes a good story" which is "part of newsroom initiation and socialisation." (McGregor)
They formed three hypotheses: The additivity: the more factors an event satisfies, the higher its newsworthiness, complementarity: the factors will tend to exclude each other, and exclusion: events that satisfy none of very few factors will usually not become news, hypotheses.
Beyond those of Galtung and Ruge, we explored the ideas of Golding and Elliot, Stephens, O'Neill and Harcup, Masterson and McGregor. While doing this, I found quite a few similarities and a couple of minor differences between all of these different perspectives. The overall sentiment, however, was resoundingly similar and essentially adhered to the ideas of Galtung and Ruge stated above.
When considering the threats to newsworthiness these days, three 'tensions' came to the fore:
1. Journalism/commercialisation of media and social life
2. Journalism/public relations
3. Journalism's ideals/reality
In this, we consider the words of Downie and Kaiser on lazy, incompetent journalism; "Too much of what has been offered as news in recent years has been untrustworthy, irresponsible, misleading or incomplete" as well as those of Davies on PR influence and tabloidisation; "...media falsehood and distortion; PR tactics and propaganda; and the use of illegal news-gathering techniques" and finally those of Rowse on hyper-commercialisation; "Media mergers are rapidly creating one huge news cartel...controlling most of what you see, hear and read. These mergers further corrupt the news process...news organisations cut down on serious coverage...". Mckinnon drew all of these together and said the combination of which "leads to an unfortunate trend...in which pressures of the newsroom (or according to some, laziness or inadequately trained journalists) result in everyday reuse of press releases without re-writing, checking or analysis."
When focussing on the 'audience' in relation to news values, it is safe to say that we just want to be heard. We wish to inform the media of our existence, and of a shift in power. The audience is the public. From this lecture, I have adopted the belief that news values are constantly shifting. If they are to remain stagnant that would mean that the world has halted. News values relate directly to what is going on around us and without them being adaptable, journalism as we know it would die. The drivers of what can be considered newsworthy shift as society's values shift. It is undeniably an ever-changing field.
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