News Values

Audience is often a factor when it comes to news editors choosing which stories will appear in a news bulletin. Radio news bulletins usually contain only a handful of stories when in reality there are often far more stories that could have made the bulletin. News editors made tough decisions about which stories they will broadcast. They do this by considering which news values prospective stories contain. News values are the factors defined by Galtung and Ruge that help to explain how journalists and editors decided that certain news stories and images were accepted as newsworthy, while others were not. While they applied these factors to news stories in newspapers, they can also be applied to radio new bulletins. The list of news values below is adapted from their work. The news values that were identified were:

Immediacy: Has it happened recently? is the story "breaking"?
Breaking news stories are often found at the top of a news bulletin.

Familiarity: Is it culturally or geographically close to us in London/Britain/Europe/the USA?
The majority of the stories in a news bulletin will have either taken place in the UK or the story will affect/involve UK nationals. Familiarity as a news value becomes an even bigger force with regards to local news.

Amplitude: Is it a big event or one which involves large numbers of people?
This often pushes stories up the bulletin.

Frequency: Does the event happen often?

This could push the story down the news bulletin.








Impact: Can we identify with the story as having effect on our own lives? Does the story contain elements that would make us feel threatened?

Stories that the listeners can relate to tend to be found towards the top of the news bulletin.

Predictability: Did we except it to happen?
Like frequency, this may push the story towards the bottom though if the story includes scandal it may have the opposite effect.

Surprise: Is it an unusual or unexpected event?

Stories that shock us because they are unexpected are likely to appear at the top.

Continuity: Does the story already been defined as news? Is it part of an ongoing or long-running story?
Opposite of breaking news. Unless the story is huge, the further away it is from breaking news the further down the new bulletin it will appear.

Conflict: Does the story contain drama in describing disagreements, arguments, gifts or battles between two or more people/organisations?
Most stories involve some degree of conflict and stories that involves individuals taking on large will appear towards the top of the news bulletin.

Elite people: Does the story concern well-known people such as celebrities?
Certain types of publication e.g. tabloid newspapers and entertainment magazines and radio stations often focus on stories that feature celebrities

Personalisation: Is it a human interest story?
Stories that overtake an emotional

Negativity: Is it bad news?
Negative news stories tend to dominate news bulletins.

Scandal: Is the story likely to provoke moral outrage from parts of the audience?
Stories with scandal, particularly with elite people tend to appear a lot.

Balance: The story may be selected to balance other news, such as a human survival story to balance a number of stories concerning death. These stories often appear at the end of a news bulletin.

Already I have noticed that the 5Ws appear in all the stories that I have looked at. This is clearly a convention on news stories so when I come to write my own news stories I will make sure i include the 5Ws in each one.