News Values

According to Galtung and Ruge, there are 13 news values. They first outlined these values in 1965, suggesting that the selection of news for broadcast is done by application of these news values by the people who control the news which we receive. More have been defined since.

News Value

Description

Negativity

Bad news - involving death, tragedy, bankruptcy, violence, damage, natural disasters, political upheaval or simply extreme weather conditions - is always rated above 'positive' stories (royal weddings, celebrations etc)

Closeness to home (Proximity)

Audiences supposedly relate more to stories that are close to them geographically, or involve people from their country, or those that are reported that way(eg '12 Hong Kongers aboard Australia Crash Plane'). News gatekeepers must consider carefully how meaningful a story will be to their particular audience

Recency

Newspapers are very competitive about breaking news - about revealing stories as they happen. 24 hour news channels such as CNN and BBC World also rate this value very highly. However, as we have seen with the events of September 11, stories may take a while to develop, and become coherent, so recency is not always the best value to rate.

Currency

This is almost opposite to recency, in that stories that have been in the public eye for some time already are deemed valuable. Therefore a story - for instance about the abduction and murder of a child - may run for weeks and weeks, even if nothing new really happens.

Continuity

Events that are likely to have a continuing impact (a war, a two week sports tournament) have a high value when the story breaks, as they will develop into an ongoing narrative which will get audiences to 'tune in tomorrow'.

Uniqueness

'Dog Bites Man' is not a story. 'Man Bites Dog' is. Any story which covers a unique or unusual event (two-headed elephant born to Birmingham woman) has news values

Simplicity

Obvious, but true. Stories which are easy to explain ('Cat stuck up tree') are preferred over stories which are not (anything to do with the Balkan or Palestinian conflicts)

Personality

Stories that centre around a particular person, because they can be presented from a 'human interest' angle, are beloved of newspapers, particularly if they involve a well-known person. Some say this news value has become distorted, and that news organisations over-rate personality stories, particularly those involving celebrities ('Kate Middleton Goes Shopping'). What do you think?

Expectedness (Predictability)

Does the event match the expectations of a news organisation and its audience? Or, has what was expected to happen (violence at a demonstration, horrific civilian casualties in a terrorist attack) actually happened? If a news story conforms to the preconceived ideas of those covering it, then it has expectedness as an important news value

Elite Nations Or People

Any story which covers an important, powerful nation (or organisation) has greater news values than a story which covers a less important nation. The same goes for people. Barack and Michelle Obama are newsworthy whatever they do.

Exclusivity

Also a major factor when setting the news agenda. If a newspaper or news programme is the first and only news organisation breaking a story, then they will rate that very highly. The UK Sunday papers are very fond of exclusives, and will often break a story of national or international importance that no one else has.

Size

does matter when it comes to news stories. The bigger impact a story has, the more people it affects, the more money/resources it involves, the higher its value. This is also known as threshold

Frequency - The time span of an event and the extent to which it fits the frequency of the newspaper’s of news broadcaster’s schedule. Frequency: Events which occur suddenly and fit well with the news organization's schedule are more likely to be reported than those which occur gradually or at inconvenient times of day or night. Long-term trends are not likely to receive much coverage.

Threshold

How big is an event? Is it big enough to make it into the news?

Unambiguity

How clear is the meaning of an event? Unambiguity: Events whose implications are clear make for better copy than those which are open to more than one interpretation, or where any understanding of the implications depends on first understanding the complex background in which the events take place.

Meaningfulness

How meaningful will the event appear to the receivers of the news? Meaningfulness: This relates to the sense of identification the audience has with the topic. "Cultural proximity" is a factor here -- stories concerned with people who speak the same language, look the same, and share the preoccupations as the audience receive more coverage than those concerned with people who speak different languages, look different and have different preoccupations.

Cultural Proximity

Evens happening in cultures very different from our own will not be seen as being inherently meaningful to audiences here.

Consonance

Does the event match the audiences expectations? Journalist have a pretty good idea of the angle from which they want to report an event before they even get there. Consonance: Stories which fit with the media's expectations receive more coverage than those which defy them (and for which they are thus unprepared). Note this appears to conflict with unexpectedness above. However, consonance really refers to the media's readiness to report an item.

Unexpectedness

If an event is highly unpredictable then it is likely to make it into the news. Unexpectedness: If an event is out of the ordinary it will have a greater effect than something which is an everyday occurrence.

Continuity

Once an event has been covered, it is convenient to continue to cover it – the running story. Continuity: A story which is already in the news gathers a kind of inertia. This is partly because the media organizations are already in place to report the story, and partly because previous reportage may have made the story more accessible to the public (making it less ambiguous).

Composition

This is a matter of the balance of the news. It is a matter of the editors’ judgement, more than anything else. A different news broadcast will have a different agenda in terms of hard and soft news. Composition: Stories must compete with one another for space in the media. For instance, editors may seek to provide a balance of different types of coverage, so that if there is an excess of foreign news for instance, the least important foreign story may have to make way for an item concerned with the domestic news. In this way the prominence given to a story depends not only on its own news values but also on those of competing stories. (Galtung and Ruge, 1965)

Reference to elite nations

This relates again to cultural proximity. Those nations which are culturally closest to our own will receive most of the coverage. Reference to elite nations: Stories concerned with global powers receive more attention than those concerned with less influential nations.

Reference to elite persons

The media pay attention to important people. Anyone the media pay attention to must be important. Reference to elite persons: Stories concerned with the rich, powerful, famous and infamous get more coverage.

Personalisation

This connects with unambiguity and meaningfulness. Events are seen as the actions of individuals. Personalization: Events which can be portrayed as the actions of individuals will be more attractive than one in which there is no such "human interest."

Negativity

Bad news is good news in terms of what is reported Negativity: Bad news is more newsworthy than good news.

Conflict: Opposition of people or forces resulting in a dramatic effect. Stories with conflict are often quite newsworthy. (CONFRONTATION) .

Competition: Commercial or professional competition between media may lead journalists to endorse the news value given to a story by a rival.

Predictability: An event is more likely to be covered if it has been pre-scheduled. (Bell, 1991)

Time constraints: Traditional news media such as radio, television and daily newspapers have strict deadlines and a short production cycle which select for items that can be researched and covered quickly.