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News values

Your lead should emphasize the most "newsworthy" information in the story you are trying to tell. But how do you figure out what information is most newsworthy? The information you consider most newsworthy depends in part on your own values, experiences and knowledge. But some general guidelines exist. Below are several characteristics that can make information newsworthy. The more of these characteristics a piece of information has, the more newsworthy the information is.

Impact: Information has impact if it affects a lot of people.

A proposed income tax increase, for instance, has impact, because an income tax increase would affect a lot of people.

The accidental killing of a little girl during a shootout between rival drug gangs has impact, too. Even though only one-person -the little girl-was directly affected, many people will feel a strong emotional response to the story.

Timeliness: Information has timeliness if it happened recently.

"Recently" is defined by the publication cycle of the news medium in which the information will appear.

For "Newsweek," events that happened during the previous week are timely

For a daily newspaper, however, events that happened during the 24 hours since the last edition of the paper are timely.

For CNN Headline News, events that happened during the past half hour are timely.

Prominence: Information has prominence if it involves a well-known person or organization.

If you or I trip and fall, no one will be all that interested, because you and I aren't well known.

But if the president of the United States trips and falls, everyone will be interested because the president is well known.

Proximity: Information has proximity if it involves something happened

somewhere nearby.

If a bus wreck in India kills 25 people, the Nashville Tennessean will devote maybe three or four paragraphs to the story.

But if a bus wreck in downtown Nashville kills 25 people, the Tennessean will devote a sizable chunk of its front page to the story.

Conflict: Information has conflict if it involves some kind of disagreement between two or more people.

Remember how, when you were a kid, everyone would run to watch a fight if one erupted on the playground?

Fights have drama-who will win? - And invite those watching to choose sides and root for one or more of the combatants.

Good democracy involves more civil -we hope -conflicts over the nature of public policy. That's why the media carry so much political news. Journalists see themselves as playing an important role in the public debate that forms the basis for democracy.

Weirdness: Information has weirdness if it involves something unusual or strange.

Charles A. Dana, a famous editor, once said, "If a dog bites a man, that's not news. But if a man bites a dog, that's news!"

Dana was saying that people are interested in out-of-the-ordinary things, like a man biting a dog

Currency: Information has currency if it is related to some general topic a lot of

people are already talking about.

A mugging in downtown Murfreesboro generally won't attract much attention from reporters at the Daily News Journal. But if the mugging occurred a day after a report by the FBI had named Murfreesboro the city with the state's fastest-growing crime rate, the mugging would be big news.

People would respond to news of the mugging by saying, "See, here's an example of just the kind of thing that FBI report was talking about. We've got to do something about the crime rate!"

Functions of News

News contains much that is new. ‘News is anything out of the ordinary.’ ‘News is anything published in a newspaper which interests a large number of people’. The main functions of news are:

1. News informs people about anything unusual that take place in the society. Mysteries, small or big, interest people and so mysteries are news. Events that affect people’s lives are news, the more people affected the bigger the news.

2. People learn something new every day through news they get from newspaper or television. They read about things they have heard about and also would like to read about.

3. News affects people and is capable of stirring widespread awareness. News touches the deepest emotion of the people and appeals somehow to everyone. Thus news affects the government as well as the common people.

4. Important messages and decisions of the government are conveyed to the people through the medium of news. News broadcast carry important statements by persons in authority to the people.

5. Conflicts between man to man and also between man and environment are carried out as news. These affect us in one-way or other. Natural phenomena like violence, calamities and disasters make us aware of the present situations and keep a check on growing violence in our society

6. New trends, events and ideas are the focus of soft news and thus grasp the imagination of people in the society. This further brings about change and progress for the country.

7. News focus on the economic, political and cultural aspects of a nation and people throughout the world learn about other nation through news only.

News forms an image of a nation to the outside world.

8. Journalist may predict that something will happen thus forming a mental image of an event and thus increase the curiosity of the audience making the news more and more relevant.

9. Reference to persons in news makes them more popular and famous. Elite personalities crave to remain in news to keep up with their image though negative publicity too these days is seen as a medium of becoming famous.

10. Stories and pictures with the capacity to entertain or amuse an audience is always the main function of news. Entertainment through news is done by carrying stories relating to showbiz, drama, sex, and humorous treatment by use of photographs or witty headlines.