News value

“ What is news? Where and how is news to be obtained? and, How is news to be presented to the reader? The first question involves the definition of news and the determination of its value, the second concerns the gathering of news, and the third has to do with structure and style in the writing of news.
What is News? Although every good newspaper worker recognizes news at once, and almost instinctively decides upon its value, most of them find it difficult to express in brief form what news is and what determines its value. ”

“ Remember, in forming your estimate of the news value of a story, that the newspaper is read by men and women of all classes—by the banker and his stenographer, the day laborer and the college professor. A story is valuable as news in proportion to the number of persons it interests. ”

“ The purely informative news story usually presents the facts of the news so that they can be grasped readily in rapid reading. Its length is determined by the value of its news as measured by the ordinary standards of news values. It may be made interesting by bringing out the human interest element and by any literary device that is adapted to the subject. Usually it has a summary lead. ”

“ There are various kinds of human interest stories. The common ground in them all is usually their lack of any intrinsic news value. Many a successful human interest story has been printed although it contained no one of the elements of news values that were outlined earlier in this book. In fact, one of the uses of the human interest story [238] is to utilize newspaper by-products that have no news value in themselves. ”

“ If we recall the various elements of news value we note that any incident may be given greater news value by the presence of some unusual or interesting feature—a great loss of life, an unusual time, a strikingly large loss of property, or simply a well-known name. ”

“ But if such an item should come to a newspaper while it is carrying on a campaign against the local street railway company, the story would probably be written and printed in great detail. Any slight occurrence that may be in line with a paper's political beliefs would receive an amount of space far out of proportion with its ordinary news worth. News value is a very changeable and indefinite thing, and there are countless reasons why any given story should be of interest to a large number of readers. And the possibility of interesting a large number of readers is the basis of news value. ”

“ Many times an incident seems, at first glance, to possess little that will interest, but, on closer examination, reveals some phase that is of considerable news value. Keen observation and insight to see the significant aspect of a person, an event, an idea, often leads [Pg 19] to the discovery of news that may escape the notice of less acute observers. The reporter must find for himself those aspects of the day’s events which are of the greatest interest to the greatest number. ”

“ All of this is true because social news is governed by the same principles that regulate all news values. Unless a society event has some feature that is interesting impersonally—that is, of interest to readers who do not know the principals of the event—it is of value only as a larger or smaller number of the paper's readers are personally connected with the event. Hence in a small town where every one knows every one else, society news is of great value. ”

“ From his individual perception of the true philosophy of human interest, more than from any other single source, have come the now general repudiation of the old conventional standards of news importance; the modern newspaper’s appreciation of the news value of the sentiment and humor of the daily life around us;417 the recognition of the principle that a small incident, interesting in itself and well told, may be worth a column’s space, when a large, dull fact is hardly worth a stickful’s ”

“ On the other hand, newspapers have discovered that the only justification for putting any fact in a newspaper is that publication will serve some sort of public interest, and that, in the long run, the value of a piece of news and the reputation of a newspaper that prints it depend upon the absolute accuracy and trustworthiness of its reports. ”

“ Keep on the look-out for good stories of animals. Provide reading for men and women with hobbies. Measure the value of your news on the basis of its local interest. Remember that readers are most interested in persons and places that they know. Consider the news value given by the importance and prominence of persons and things. Bring your news as close as possible to the reader’s home and business. ”

“ News stories present (1) timely events of interest and significance to readers, and (2) timely incidents of little or no news value that are made entertaining by the manner in which they are presented. The first is the common type of news story; the second is usually called the “human interest” or “feature” story. Although it is sometimes said that anything that has ever2 happened is news if it has not been generally known, it is evident that events that have occurred in the past are not worth publishing as news unless they have a timely interest and significance. ”

“ The sensational character of the daily press must be considered in this connection. The news value of normal, peaceable developments is very small. It is therefore a godsend to the news- papers when something extraordinary happens, particularly in international affairs. ”

“ News is anything timely that interests a number of people; and the best news is that which has the greatest interest for the greatest number.
By the application of these tests to each event, idea, or activity, the reporter can determine for himself what is news and what is not, as well as what value a piece of news possesses. He must ask himself concerning each piece of news that he gets: “Is it new and timely?” ”

“ Not only do the acquisition and transmission of news require elaborate organization and a large expenditure of money, skill, and effort; not only has it an exchange value to the gatherer, dependent chiefly upon its novelty and freshness, the regularity of the service, its reputed reliability and thoroughness, and its adaptability to the public needs; but also, as is evident, the news has an exchange value to one who can misappropriate it. ”

“ Incidental concerns of both men and women readers, such as organizations to which they belong, general movements with which they are connected, or the social life of which they are a part, give interest for them to news concerning these activities. News values, therefore, are measured by the extent to which news affects directly the lives of readers; the greater the effect and the larger the number of readers affected, the better the news. ”

“ However interesting the theories and principles of the art of news writing may be for themselves, it is the practical application of them in the writer’s own work that gives them their value for the student of journalism.
Aims in studying news stories. The purpose in analyzing typical examples of news writing should be to discover in detail (1) how to obtain news, (2) how to determine its value, and (3) how to present it most effectively. Most stories reveal the means by which their contents were obtained and the importance which the writer or editor attached to each of the details. ”

“ What M. E. Stone says to his correspondents on story writing may be read with profit by any newspaper man. The following is clipped from the monthly bulletin issued by the Associated Press to its correspondents:
A plain statement of fact is the best introduction to a news story. A simple, direct style—which does not mean a wooden style—is always desirable. In the opening sentence it is of particular value.
The news which a story contains is the one thing which entitles it to place in the Associated Press report. It is the news, not the manner of telling the news, on which the story must stand. ”

“ An extended account of the doings of a Presbyterian convention would not attract the great class of men with sporting inclinations, and a story of a very pretty exhibition of scientific boxing would not appeal to the wife at home. They all buy the paper, and they all want to be interested, and the paper must, therefore, print stories that interest at least the majority of them. That is the question of news values. The news must be the account of the latest events that interest the greatest number of readers of all classes. ”

“ Hence the first principle of news values is timeliness—news is news only because it just happened and can be spoken of as one of the events of "to-day" or of "late yesterday."
3. Distance.—Distance is another factor in news values. In spite of fast trains and electric telegraphs human beings are clannish and local in their interests. They are interested mainly in things and persons that they know, and news from outside their ken must be of unusual significance to attract them. ”

“ Essentials of News Writing.—To write successful news stories, four requisites are necessary: the power to estimate news values properly, the stories to write, the ability to work rapidly, and the power to present facts accurately and interestingly. ”

“ The "Nose for News."—Recognition of news values is put first in the tabulation of requirements for successful writing because without a "nose for news"—without the ability to recognize a story when one sees it—a reporter cannot hope to succeed. Editorial rooms all over the United States are full of stories of would-be reporters who have failed because they have not been able to recognize news. The following is a genuine first paragraph of a country correspondent's letter to a village weekly in Tennessee ”

“ Second Essential of News Writing.—As explained in the preceding chapter, the first essential in news writing is a proper appreciation of news and news values. The second essential is the possession of a story to write. ”

“ Let us endeavour to supply a rapid sketch of the wonderful organization that is required to produce this great necessary of modern society.
The essential characteristic of a newspaper is news. It may be philosophical, or critical, or imaginative—it may pour forth treasures of learning or eloquence, to live but a few hours and then be too readily forgotten—but no amount of ability will give it currency if it be deficient in news. ”

“ If the newspaper has not the news it may have everything else, yet it will be comparatively unsuccessful; and by news I mean everything that occurs, everything which is of human interest, and which is of sufficient interest to arrest and absorb the attention of the public or of any considerable part of it. ”

“ What a newspaper needs in its news, in its headlines, and on its editorial page is terseness, humor, descriptive power, satire, originality, good literary style, clever condensation, and accuracy, accuracy, accuracy! ”

“ Since news is the newspaper’s backbone, it is obvious that an understanding of what news actually is must be an integral part of the equipment of the public relations counsel. For the public relations counsel must not only supply news—he must create news. This function as the creator of news is even more important than his others.
It has always been interesting to me that a concise, comprehensive definition of news has never been written. What news is, every newspaper man instinctively knows, particularly as it concerns the needs of his own paper. ”

“ Are there not a hundred little rivulets of news which never flow through the journals, but are passed from mouth to mouth, and seem shallow enough, but which, uniting at last, form a great stream of public opinion, and this, having formed itself imperceptibly, is suddenly found in full flow, and is so obvious that the newspapers forget to mention it? ”

“ Thus the daily newspaper will be entirely a vehicle for the propagation of news, correctly so called: and very likely it will become almost entirely colourless, politically, because a well-informed public will resent obvious garbling or clearly unfair selection. ”

“ The more popular and cheaper papers concentrate their chief energies on giving the largest number of items of ordinary news, which it is their aim to transform as far as possible into matters of exceptional interest, while the old-established organs of social and political weight are content to state their news impartially, if not boldly, and rely on their powers of interesting the reader by able discussions on political, artistic or literary topics, as they present new features day by day. ”

“ The human interest story has grown out of a number of causes. Up to a very recent time newspapers have been content with printing news in its barest possible form—facts and nothing but facts. Their appeal has been only to the brain. ”

“ News is the real government now and always of this world.
When one has made up one's mind to tell this news, obviously the best art-form for telling news to employers and business men—the news of what we want and what we do not want and of what we want in them as well as in the things they sell, is to tell them the news in the language they have studied most, tell it to them in pounds, shillings, dollars, and cents, and by trading somewhere else. ”

“ Here, then, is need for originality in the writing of news. If the reporter’s outlook is cynical he is likely to overlook the human side of the story for the lifeless skeleton of commonplace facts. His story may be mechanically correct, but it has no power of appeal. Without distorting a single fact, in plain, everyday words, the news writer may tell a story of human suffering that will rouse his readers to generous response. ”

“ All of them have souls to save—so has that lawyer who does not go to church. I must see him to-morrow. 'What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?'"
Meanwhile the newspaper man prints the news about them all, for he keeps his finger on the pulse of the whole world for news. "No factor in modern civilization is so important as the press," says he. ”