News Values and Their Importance

News Values

• The news is a reflection of society, providing insights into the world.
• Journalists choose stories from numerous events happening locally and globally, aiming to inform, educate, or entertain the audience.
• Jack Hart's framework for newsworthy stories includes an engaging central character facing a challenge or conflict where changes occur in an interesting setting.
• Classic news values include timeliness, impact, prominence, proximity, unusualness, and conflict.
• Timeliness and immediacy are critical, with the internet drastically changing the measurement from days/hours to minutes/seconds.
• Impact refers to stories affecting large numbers of people or significant sectors of society.
• Prominence involves news involving famous individuals (celebrities) or those in their “15 minutes” of fame.
• Proximity signifies geographic or psychological closeness to the audience.
• Unusualness covers bizarre, rare, or unique events.
• Conflict describes stories about disagreements between people, organizations, or governments.
• Additional news values include human interest, helpfulness, entertainment, and trends.
• Human interest covers personal struggles, achievements, or overcoming difficulties.
• Helpfulness focuses on practical stories offering solutions or guidance.
• Entertainment involves light, amusing stories.
• Trends highlight patterns or shifts in social, cultural, or political life.
• Fairness and objectivity are crucial, demanding unbiased reporting, accurate information, and representation of all sides of a story.
• Journalists have a duty to their audience to push back against misinformation.

What is Not Newsworthy

• Obvious information is not newsworthy.
• Offensive details, including obscene, gruesome, or tasteless content, should be avoided.
• While most news organizations steer clear of sensationalism, sensational stories may be legitimate news (e.g., presidential assassinations, wars, and disasters).
• It's important to assess if every piece of information adds value to the story and if the public has a right to it.
• Rumors require investigation for veracity.
• The media generally avoids identifying victims of sexual assault to protect them and encourage reporting.
• The media typically does not identify juveniles accused or convicted of crimes, unless they are tried as adults for serious offenses, such as murder.
• Trade names are usually avoided to prevent free advertising, but this is changing.

Importance of Accuracy

• Errors harm public perception of the media.
• Reporters must recheck their notes and consult sources to ensure accuracy.
• Journalists should clarify information they don't understand with sources.
• Accuracy in names is critical. Always verify spellings of names and titles with sources or documents.

Eliminate Unnecessary Words

• Journalists strive for clarity and brevity for readers to grasp main ideas quickly.
• Redundant phrases should be avoided (e.g., “exactly identical” → identical).
• Long, verbose phrases can be replaced by shorter alternatives (e.g., “conduct an investigation into” → investigate).

The Language of News

• Journalists must choose words carefully to avoid confusion or ambiguity.
• Misplaced phrases or incorrect grammar can lead to misunderstandings.
• Common grammatical errors include run-on sentences, comma splices, subject-verb agreement issues, noun-pronoun agreement errors, “that/which” confusion, “who/whom” confusion, precision, punctuation marks, parallelism, spelling, syntax, personification, misplaced modifiers, and dangling modifiers.
• Precision in word choice is essential to avoid misleading readers.
• Strong verbs make writing more dynamic.
• Problems to avoid include overuse of adjectives and adverbs, clichés, jargon, euphemisms, first-person references, negative construction, echo, gush, vague time references, present tense, and excessive punctuation.
• Writers should avoid first-person references in news reporting and be cautious with echoing. Writing should be concise and direct.

The Five W’s

• The five W’s (Who, What, When, Where, Why) and How guide news reporting.
• Who: Focuses on those involved in the story.
• What: Defines the substance of the news - events, ideas, etc.
• When: Timeliness of the event is crucial to its relevance.
• Where: The location of events adds relevance for the audience.
• Why: Adds meaning and context to the events.
• How: Often explained when there's space or it aligns with the "Why.”

Basic News Leads

• The lead is the first paragraph of a news story, containing the most critical information.
• It serves to attract the reader’s attention and summarize the story’s essence.
• The lead should answer the main questions: 1. What happened? 2. Why does this matter to me?
• To write an effective lead, gather all facts, prioritize the five W’s, and revise for clarity, conciseness, and impact.
• Most leads consist of a single sentence starting with the subject followed by an active verb.
• Use specific details, strong active verbs, avoid passive voice, and emphasize story magnitude.
• Localize stories to the audience and be fair, objective, and attribute opinions.
• Leads should be straightforward, avoid starting with attribution, and avoid minimizing important news.
• Avoid agenda, label, “you”, or question leads, overgeneralizations, listing unnecessary details, stating the obvious, focusing on negatives, exaggeration, and distortion.
• The lead must be clear and interesting to attract readers’ attention.

Types of News Leads

• Summary Lead: Combines the most significant of the 5 W’s into one sentence.
• Delayed IdentificationLead: Withholds key information, such as a person’s name, for the second paragraph.
• Name-RecognitionLead: Used for famous figures, leveraging their recognition to draw attention.
• Interesting-ActionLead: Focuses on unusual actions or events rather than individuals.
• EventLead: Highlights the outcome or key result of a meeting or speech.
• Second-DayLead: Provides fresh information in ongoing coverage (e.g., court trials).
• AnecdotalLead: Uses a brief story to draw readers into the topic.
• Scene-SetterLead: Reservered for long stories with more description.
• BlindLead: Deliberately teases readers by withholding a key piece of information, including it in a subsequent paragraph.
• RoundupLead: Impresses the reader with a longer list instead of focusing on just one person, place, or thing.
• Direct AddressLead: Uses the second-person voice (you) to speak directly to the reader.

Explore the critical elements that make news stories compelling through this quiz on news values. Understand concepts like timeliness, impact, prominence, proximity, unusualness, and conflict in journalism. Assess your knowledge of Jack Hart's framework and its significance in today's fast-paced media environment.