Week 2 Journalism

Question 1

News has been defined as

Answer 1

News has been defined as “the fresh, unpublished, unusual and generally interesting,”

Question 2

The production of news has been described by scholars of com- munication as

Answer 2

“the passive exercise of routine and highly regulated procedures in the task of selecting from already limited supplies of information

Question 3

College of Osmosis

Answer 3

journalists both consume news and inhabit news organizations “long enough to absorb the essentials

Question 4

News values have been described as

Answer 4

News values have been described as providing “a shared shorthand opera- tional understanding of what working journalists are required to produce to deadline”

Question 5

The delivery of instant news via digital and social media has resulted

Answer 5

news judgements being speeded up even more than they were already, compromising accuracy, verifiability, and depth

Question 6

News, according to Jackie Harrison (2006, p. 13), is

Answer 6

whatever is “judged to be newsworthy by journalists, who exercise their news sense within the constraints of the news organizations within which they operate.” This judging process is guided by an understanding of the news values—that are “passed down to new generations of journalists through a process of training and socialisation”

Question 7

“No theory of news values can explain everything” in part because

Answer 7

“No theory of news values can explain everything” in part because “arbitrary factors including luck, convenience and serendipity can come into play,” as well as structural, cultural, and political- economic factors

Question 8

The identification of news values in stories offers insights into

Answer 8

the identification of news values in stories offers insights into the how of the reporting rather than the why”

Question 9

The more clearly an event could be understood and interpreted unambiguously, with- out multiple potential meanings, the more

Answer 9

the more likely it was to be selected

Question 10

Media represent the world rather than ”

Answer 10

Media represent the world rather than reflect it, leading to stereo- typed frames: “Media representations reduce, shrink, condense and select/repeat aspects of intri- cate social relations in order to represent them as fixed, natural, obvious and ready to consume

Question 11

News values allow jour- nalists to “translate

Answer 11

“translate untidy reality into neat stories with beginnings, middles, and denouements,” and in the process, such values tend to “reinforce conventional opinions and established author- ity.

Question 12

12 factors identified as being important in the selection of news:

Answer 12

• Frequency: An event that unfolds within a publication cycle of the news medium is more likely to be selected than a one that takes place over a long period of time.
• Threshold: Events have to pass a threshold before being recorded at all; the greater the intensity (the more gruesome the murder or the more casualties in an accident), the greater the impact and the more likely it is to be selected.
• Unambiguity: The more clearly an event can be understood and interpreted without mul- tiple meanings, the more likely it is to be selected.
• Meaningfulness: The culturally familiar is more likely to be selected.
• Consonance: The news selector may be able to predict (due to experience) events that will be newsworthy, thus forming a “pre-image” of an event, which in turn increases its chances of becoming news.
• Unexpectedness: Among events meaningful and/or consonant, the unexpected or rare event is more likely to be selected.
• Continuity: An event already in the news has a good chance of remaining in the news (even if its impact has been reduced) because it has become familiar and easier to interpret.
• Composition: An event may be included as news less because of its intrinsic news value than because it fits into the overall composition or balance of a newspaper or news broadcast.
• Reference to elite nations: The actions of elite nations are seen as more consequential than the actions of other nations.
• Reference to elite people: Again, the actions of elite people, likely to be famous, may be seen by news selectors as having more consequence than others, and news audiences may identify with them.
• Reference to persons: News that can be presented in terms of individual people rather than abstractions is likely to be selected.
• Reference to something negative: Bad events are generally unambiguous and newsworthy.

Question 13

Six different dimensions to news selection, which he further broke down into 19 news factors:

Answer 13

Six different dimensions to news selection, which he further broke down into 19 news factors: status (elite nation, elite institution, elite person); valence (aggression, controversy, values, success); rel- evance (consequence, concern); identification (proximity, ethnocentrism, personalization, emo- tions); consonance (theme, stereotype, predictability); and dynamics (timeliness, uncertainty, unexpectedness).

Question 14

news values derived essentially from t.

Answer 14

from occupational pragmatism and implicit assumptions, which they described as audience, accessibility, and fit. This involved consideration of whether an event/issue was important to the audience, would hold their attention, be under- stood, enjoyed, registered, or perceived as relevant; the extent to which an event was known to the news organization and the resources it would require to obtain; and whether the event fitted the routines of production and made sense in terms of what was already known about the subject.

Question 15

Selection criteria:

Answer 15

• Drama: This is often presented as conflict, commonly as opposing viewpoints.
• Visual attractiveness: They discuss this in terms of images for television though, of course, images are also relevant to print and online news media. “A story may be included simply because film is available or because of the dramatic qualities of the film” (1979, p. 116).
• Entertainment: In order to captivate as wide an audience as possible, news producers must take account of entertainment values that amuse or divert the audience. This includes “human interest” stories and the actors in these whimsical and bizarre events may be celebrities, children, and animals.
• Importance: This may mean the reported event is greatly significant for a large proportion of the audience, but it also explains the inclusion of items that might be omitted on the criteria of other audience-based news values.
• Size: The more people involved in a disaster, or the bigger the “names” at an event, the more likely the item is to be on the news agenda.
• Proximity: As with size, this derives partly from audience considerations and partly from accessibility since there is cultural and geographical proximity. The first depends on what is familiar and within the experience of journalists and their audience, while the second may depend on where correspondents are based. As a rule of thumb, nearby events take precedence over similar events at a distance.
• Negativity: “Bad news is good news. News is about disruptions in the normal current
  of events not the uneventful” (1979, p. 120). Such news provides drama and shock
  value which attracts audiences.
• Brevity: A story that is full of facts with little padding is preferred (particularly important for broadcast news).
• Recency: Competition between news outlets puts a “premium” on exclusives and scoops. Also daily news production is within a daily time frame so that news events must normally occur within the 24 hours between bulletins (or newspaper editions) to merit inclusion.
• Elites: Clearly big names attract audiences, but there is a circularity in that big names become famous by virtue of their exposure.
• Personalities: Since news is about people, this is reflected in the need to reduce complex
  events and issues to the actions of individuals.

Question 16

Traditional news values do not, in themselves, explain

Answer 16

traditional news values do not, in themselves, explain the selection process, and since “news is literally for sale,” they need to be supplemented with a set of “commercial news criteria.”

Question 17

The market is crucial to the output of any news organization, yet this may not often be made explicit or acknowledged when discussing the selection and production of news. It means

Answer 17

The market is crucial to the output of any news organization, yet this may not often be made explicit or acknowledged when discussing the selection and production of news. It means news is selected and packaged in a format that is audience-oriented and commercial by being enter- taining and reflecting popular tastes

Question 18

three

general factors that governed the selection and production of news, one of which is competi- tion.

Answer 18

three

general factors that governed the selection and production of news, one of which is competi- tion. The second concerned the geographical area of coverage and type of audience. “events that take place outside a paper’s home market, even dramatic ones, may be considered non-events simply because they occur outside the area [or social class/niche interest] where the medium has its audience (and its advertisers)” (ibid., our addition). The third of Allern’s general factors was the budget allotted to news departments, which is an expres- sion of the company’s financial objectives.

Question 19

); a supplementary list of commercial news values:

Answer 19

• The more resources it costs to follow up a story or expose an event/issue, the less likely it will become a news story.
• The more journalistically a potential news item is prepared/formatted by the source or sender, the greater the likelihood that it will become news.
• The more selectively a story is distributed to news organizations, the more likely it will become news.
• The more a news medium’s strategy is based on sensationalist reporting in order to attract public attention and the greater the opportunity for accentuating these elements in a poten- tial story, the more likely a story is to be used.

Question 20

Journalists thought it important to select news that increased “people’s awareness of problems in society,” that had

Answer 20

that had “consequences for people’s daily lives,” and that increased “people’s insights and knowledge” (ibid., p. 725). what appeared in the news rather than what they perceived to be important for society.

Question 21

four key news values are

Answer 21

four key news values are the presence of conflict or deviance, relevance to the audience, a sense of cultural affinity, and degree of prominence within the hierarchy of nations

Question 22

, news stories must generally satisfy one or preferably more of the following requirements to be selected:

Answer 22

• Exclusivity: Stories generated by, or available first to, the news organization as a result of
  interviews, letters, investigations, surveys, polls, and so on.
• Bad news: Stories with particularly negative overtones such as death, injury, defeat, and loss (of a job, for example).
• Conflict: Stories concerning conflict such as controversies, arguments, splits, strikes, fights, insurrections, and warfare.
• Surprise: Stories that have an element of surprise, contrast, and/or the unusual about them.
• Audio-visuals: Stories that have arresting photographs, video, or audio and/or that can be illustrated with infographics.
• Shareability: Stories that are thought likely to generate sharing and comments via Face- book, Twitter, and other forms of social media.
• Entertainment: Soft stories concerning sex, show business, sport, lighter human interest, animals, or offering opportunities for humorous treatment, witty headlines, or lists.
• Drama: Stories concerning an unfolding drama such as escapes, accidents, searches, sieges, rescues, battles, or court cases.
• Follow-up: Stories about subjects already in the news.
• The power elite: Stories concerning powerful individuals, organizations, institutions, or corporations.
• Relevance: Stories about groups or nations perceived to be influential with, or culturally
  or historically familiar to, the audience.
• Magnitude: Stories perceived as sufficiently significant in the large numbers of people involved or in potential impact, or involving a degree of extreme behavior or extreme occurrence.
• Celebrity: Stories concerning people who are already famous.
• Good news: Stories with particularly positive overtones such as recoveries, breakthroughs, cures, wins, and celebrations.
• News organization’s agenda: Stories that set or fit the news organization’s own agenda, whether ideological, commercial, or as part of a specific campaign.

Question 23

One enormous change wrought by social and digital media is that journalists are

Answer 23

is that journalists are provided with constant feedback on what stories audiences are engaged with, what they like, and what they share. Assumptions made by journalists about what is newsworthy—or at least what interests the audience—can now be tested

Question 24

it should be acknowledged that entertain- ing news serves a positive role

Answer 24

it should be acknowledged that entertain- ing news serves a positive role in engaging news consumers and off-setting an overload of scary and gloomy stories. However, for some scholars, such as Franklin (1997), this balance can be taken too far, leading to the trivialization of news and “dumbing down

Question 25

As outlined above, news selection is not based merely on

Answer 25

As outlined above, news selection is not based merely on intrinsic aspects of events, but also on functions external to events themselves, including occupational routines and constraints, and ideology whereby news is “a socially determined construction of reality

Question 26

“selection of topics” is one of the key ways in which the media ful- fill their

Answer 26

“selection of topics” is one of the key ways in which the media ful- fill their “societal purpose” of inculcating “the economic, social, and political agenda of privi- leged groups that dominate the domestic society and the state.”

Question 27

Debate and dissent are permitted, but only within

Answer 27

Debate and dissent are permitted, but only within a largely internalized consensus; any journalist stepping outside that consensus runs the risk of appearing unprofessional.

Question 28

the less economically developed a nation, the more emphasis

Answer 28

the more emphasis on direct exhortations in the news, the more emphasis on news stories set in the future, the more emphasis on news stories about cooperation and the more emphasis on positive evaluations of the news subjects—the type of reporting often described as development journalism

Question 29

The closer journalists were to a news event in terms of national interest, the

Answer 29

The closer journalists were to a news event in terms of national interest, the less likely they were to apply professional news values.

Question 30

While there is an assumption that adherence to news values is implicitly more “profes- sional,” eliminating bias, political or otherwise, this can be problematic in that news values

Answer 30

in that news values may create uniformity, negativity, and reduction to stereotypes (Ndlela, 2005), as well as present- ing obstacles for non-Western journalists

Question 31

An emphasis on what could be described

Answer 31

an emphasis on what could be described as West- ern professional news values did not reflect the realities for graduates facing severe political and legal constraints.

Question 32

peace journalism,

Answer 32

peace journalism, a journalism that explores the causes of and alternatives to conflict

Question 33

economic interest, information availability, and pro- duction cost of international news were also at work in

Answer 33

were also at work in determining the volume of information from abroad selected for inclusion.