Chicago Times

Chapter four A ‘know’ for news

Introduction – the aims of this lecture are to help you understand: • • • • •

Definitions of news How to recognise news How to report news Standard news values The who, what, when, where, how, and why of news • How and why some media are changing

News, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder • ‘the first rough draft of history’ (Bradlee in Hough 1984: 60) • ‘anything that makes a reader say “gee, whiz!”’ (William Randolph Hearst) • ‘anything you can find out today that you didn’t know before’ (Catledge) • ‘anything that will make people talk’ (Dana)

A good definition of news •

US journalism educator Melvin Mencher says there are two general guidelines when trying to define news: 1) ‘News is information about a break from the normal flow of events, an interruption in the expected’ 2) ‘News is information people need to make sound decisions about their lives’ (Mencher 1997: 58)

Another way of thinking about news • John B Bogart, city editor of The New York Sun, provided a classic description of news a century ago when he said: ‘When a dog bites a man, that is not news because it happens so often. But if a man bites a dog, it’s news.’

Kipling's ‘Six strong serving men’ • In 1902 British journalist, poet and author Rudyard Kipling explained ‘news’ in the following terms when he wrote: • I keep six honest serving-men, • (They taught me all I knew); • Their names are What and Why and When • And How and Where and Who. • I send them over land and sea, • I send them east and west … (in Kipling 1986: 291)

News values •

•

Impact – events that are likely to affect many people. But be aware that something that has a big impact in one community may not have much news value in another Conflict – events that reflect clashes between people or institutions (one of the strongest news values)

News values • Timeliness – events that are immediate and recent (news value almost always diminishes over time) • Proximity – events geographically or emotionally close to the reader, viewer or listener

News values • Prominence – events involving wellknown people or institutions and organisations • Currency – events and situations that are being talked about, sometimes known as water cooler stories because they spark office gossip

News values • Human interest – the people factor People want to know about other people • The unusual – events that deviate sharply from the expected and the experiences of everyday life (one of the strongest news values)

A word of warning about unusual stories • How unusual, is too unusual? • Is someone pulling your leg? • Try to double check unusual information, preferably with a credible source or authority • Watch your language – is something really the ‘biggest’, ‘oldest’, ‘first’, ‘last’, ‘unique’, ‘only’, or ‘heaviest’?

News can never be perfect • It is important to understand that by its nature it is virtually impossible for news to be perfectly presented • As Tiffen says: “Covering the news is an infinite, impossible task. News is therefore an exercise in imperfection, the product of a series of compromises” (Tiffen: 28)

The ‘softening’ of news • Newspapers around the world are fighting to compete with online news • Many newspapers now regularly scoop themselves online • Some papers have responded by cutting news content and boosting soft lifestyle features • There are indications that readers do not want bigger papers with more pages

What do readers want? • Research for News Limited shows that: – the top editorial topic for men (83 per cent) and women (81 per cent) was the environment – the front page was the most read section, followed by general news and world news for both genders – next was sport (for men) and inserted magazines (for women) – about one-in-three readers (35 per cent) read most of the copy in editorial items

Reactive and proactive news • Reactive news tends to focus on breaking stories – accidents, wars, acts of terrorism • Proactive news stems from investigative reports, exposés, exclusive interviews, and unique photographs or vision • Reactive news is best suited to radio and the web • Proactive news is suited to newspapers

A few last words on news • ‘It is a newspaper’s duty to print the news, and raise hell’ (Wilbur F. Storey, Editor, Chicago Times) • ‘Unhappiness with the media is nothing new; the messenger has always caught hell for bringing bad news’ (J Herbert Altschull, journalist)