Journalism News Determinants

Journalism News Determinants

By Tonya Hill

​Determining the Value of News

News is a report of recent or current event or information published in newspaper or other periodicals.

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Reporters and editors make their decisions by weighing the news value of all the facts or stories available each day. Stories with greater news value for readers get written and those stories with greater news value than others are published in the paper. ... These are called news determinants.​

​The Determinants

​Different individuals have posited a mutitude of values that can be used as determinants to the qualitiy of a news artilce. For this unit we will focus on six:

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• Impact

• Timeliness

• Conflict​

• Prominence

• Proximity

• Human Interest

Impact

News that affects a lot of readers or viewers.

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News should impact its readers in some way. Readers care more about information that will affect them. The more people that are impacted, the more newsworthy a story is. Impact is dependent upon audience, so journalists must know and understand the audience of their publication.

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Timeliness

News that is current and up to date.

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News should be timely. It should be reported as soon as possible, ideally as soon as it happens. Information can “expire” to the point where it is no longer news. “Old” news is not news. News must be brand new information or a new update to an existing story or situation. Keep in mind that not ALL news is time-sensitive.

Conflict

News that reports on a controversy.

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​News should describe conflict between two opposing forces. Opposing forces can mean physical conflict between people or the conflict of different ideas/views. Humans are naturally drawn to conflict, drama, and disagreement. It’s “juicy” and interesting to us, and we often like to take sides and discuss such conflict.

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Prominence

News that involves a well-known person.

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​News should cover the lives of prominent, or well-known, people. This includes people in the public spotlight such as politicians or celebrities. If the readers will recognize a name, the person is prominent. Those in the public spotlight are often scrutinized by the media (and usually held to a higher standard of conduct).

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Proximity

News that happens near an audience.

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News should be close to home. Readers want to know what is happening in their area. The closer the news, the better! Proximity varies from publication to publication. Journalists must know their audience. Oftentimes, local publications will “localize” a larger, national story by connecting the story to the local community in some way.

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Human Interest

News that is about people’s lives that evoke the audience’s emotions

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News should appeal to human emotions. News can evoke many different feelings among its readers. Human interest stories are often stories about humans doing interesting things! Human interest stories can be inspiring, unique, surprising, comical, etc. If it makes you feel something, it’s human interest.

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Determining the Determinants

Many stories have mutliple determinants. A story can be timely and have conflcts involving famous or prominent people. A timely story can happen in your city (proximity) as well as be of human interest.

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The more determinants a story has, the more popular the news item will be. ​

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Your Turn:

Time to apply your knowedge of determinants to the news.

Multiple Select

New Dress Code

The administration at your school will begin enforcing a new dress code on Monday. This new dress code is a lot more strict than the one currently in place.

• Impact

• Timeliness

• Conflict

• Prominence

• Proximity

Teacher Retiring

One of the most loved teachers at your school is retiring at the end of the year after teaching at your school for 35 years.

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News Determinants:

-Proximity – this is happening at your school

-Consequence/Impact – this will affect a lot students

-Prominence – this teacher was a favorite one among students

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Multiple Select

This is a story in your school newspaper...which determinants apply. Check ALL!

Teacher Retiring

One of the most loved teachers at your school is retiring at the end of the year after teaching at your school for 35 years.

• Impact

• Timeliness

• Conflict

• Prominence

• Proximity

New Dress Code

​The administration at your school will begin enforcing a new dress code on Monday. This new dress code is a lot more strict than the one currently in place.

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News Determinants:

-Proximity – this is happening at your school

-Timeliness – this is starting next week

-Consequence/Impact – this will affect all students

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Multiple Select

This is a story in your school newspaper...which determinants apply. Check ALL!

Girls' Volleyball Goes Undefeated

The girls' varsity volleyball team at your school just won their last game of the season last night, finishing regular season play with an undefeated record. Playoffs begin next week.

• Impact

• Timeliness

• Human Interest

• Prominence

• Proximity

Girls' Volleyball

The girls varsity volleyball team at your school just won their last game of the season last night, finishing regular season play with an undefeated record. Playoffs begin next week.

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News Determinants:

-Proximity – this is happening at your school

-Timeliness – this just happened last week

-Human Interest- it is a sports story and of emotional impact to the athletes and their fans

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Multiple Select

This is a story in your school newspaper...which determinants apply. Check ALL!

Fun Tutorial

Students love taking selfies, so why not write a how-to tutorial that includes pictures and step-by-step instructions on how to take the perfect selfie.

• Impact

• Timeliness

• Human Interest

• Prominence

• Proximity

Fun Tutorial

Students love taking selfies, so why not write a how-to tutorial that includes pictures and step-by-step instructions on how to take the perfect selfie.

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News Determinants:

-Timeliness – this is a current trend and of current interest

-Human Interest- -this is a fun and engaging story that many of your readers will like reading

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Multiple Select

This is a story in your school newspaper...which determinants apply.

Student Council Elections

Students in the school will cast their votes for the Student Council this week. The race is especially contentious as two of the most populare students , the predisident of the Theatre club and the captian of the footlball team, vie for President of Student Council. Which side will win?

• Impact

• Timeliness

• Conflict

• Prominence

• Proximity

Student Council Elections

Students in the school will cast their votes for the Student Council this week. The race is especially contentious as two of the most populare students , the predisident of the Theatre club and the captian of the footlball team, vie for President of Student Council. Which side will win?

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News Determinants:

-Timeliness – this is happening this week

-Impact - This will affect your all of the students in your school's student body

-​Conflict - this is a race between two different factions

-Proximity - this is happening at your school​

-Prominence - this is between two of the most popular students at your school​