News Gathering & Reporting

Com 103

Lecture 7: News Values

Dr. Ahmed H. El-Saman

News Gathering and Reporting COm 103

5/8/2022
 Newsgathering
5 News Gathering and
Reporting COm 103 2
/
8
/
2 Process
0
2
2
• The ability to find and make sense of
information is almost the definition of
newsgathering
• Newsgathering involves collecting facts,
including sound and pictures as well as text,
and checking them carefully for accuracy
• The curiosity of the reporter is the main source
of journalism
 Newsgathering
5 News Gathering and
Reporting COm 103 3
/
8
/
2 Process
0
2
2
• Good News collector should be:
• curious , want to know why things happen, about
everything around you. Do not limit curiosity to those
relatively few things that hold your interest today, or
those few things in which you believe it will make
news.
• Persistent, they do not take no for an answer.
• The powerful people do not intimidate them
• they care deeply about the work they do.
 Curiosity always
5 News Gathering and
Reporting COm 103 4
/
8
/
2 list
0
2
2
• Always
• Consider Yourself On The Clock.
• See Potential Stories In Your Personal Journeys.
• Have A Notebook,
• Be Ready To Use Your Camera Phone At Any Time.
• Be Up For Politely Listening In On Strangers And
Friends.
• And Always Engage In Campus Life And Quality
Conversation
 News Values CH 3

• If news is to be worthwhile, it should accord to

something we value. Such as Prominence,
Currency, Oddity and many other values
• Q: what is the importance of news value
• News values help:
• To turn an event into a news story
• The selection criteria for news for the newsroom
and by reporters in the field.
• Arrangements of what news reporters should do
to give the story a value
• Arrangements of the news itself in the main Page

News Gathering and Reporting COm

5/8/2022 5
103
 News Gathering, Editing

• New Values:
– Timeliness
– Impact
– Proximity
– Controversy (Negativity)
– Prominence
– Currency
– Oddity (unusual).
– Predictability; elections, events, and award announcement

5/8/2022 News Gathering and Reporting COm 103 6

 Timeliness, Recently

• The major common denominator is novelty

• The main question here is; did something happen
recently? Or,
• Did we just learn about it?
• In the world of news, being first brings with it a
superior, the first to report a story has a major
advantage in attracting the audience
• For news organizations, there is enormous pressure
to be first with the news
– This is the dominant factor behind the way in
which newsgathering is organized

News Gathering and Reporting COm

5/8/2022 7
103
 Timeliness, Recently
PLZ Refer to UR Story if it is applicable

• News coverage is dictated by time especially with

shift to 24-hour rolling news
• The meaning of recently varies depending on the
medium. (T&F)
• For a weekly news magazine, anything that
happened since the previous edition may
consider timely.
• For a 24-hour news channel, the timeliness news
may be “breaking news” or something that is
happening this very minute and can covered by a
reporter live at the scene.

News Gathering and Reporting COm

5/8/2022 8
103
 Impact
PLZ Refer to UR Story if it is applicable

• Are many people affected physically or emotionally, or just a few?.

• For instance, workers cut an electricity line is not

big news,
• unless it causes a blackout across your city,
or lasts for several hours

News Gathering and Reporting COm

5/8/2022 9
103
 Oddity
PLZ Refer to UR Story if it is applicable

• The most unexpected, extraordinary or rare events,

will have a greatest chance of being selected as
news.
• The main question here; is what happened unusual?
• The extraordinary and the unexpected are appealing
to our natural human curiosity.
• As Charles Anderson Dana, an American journalist
says; If a dog bites a man, that is not news. But if a
man bites a dog, it is news
News Gathering and Reporting COm
5/8/2022 10
103
 Negativity and, Conflict
PLZ Refer to UR Story if it is applicable

• It is human nature to interest in stories involve

negativity, conflict, tension, or public debate.
• In some newsrooms, the search for conflict in a
story means that, reporters are motivated to look
for oppositional points of views.
• This means that there is a built-in requirement to
provide space for contradictory voices

News Gathering and Reporting COm

5/8/2022 11
103
 Negativity and, Conflict

• Conflict and negative stories values, are not universal

news values. In Singapore and China, for example,
conflict is played down and reporters look for the positive
side in any story
• There was a time when even big disasters such as
earthquakes and floods would be ignored, or put on the
inside pages of Chinese newspapers and covered
mainly in terms of how the authorities are managing the
crisis successfully.
• (T&F) Conflict and negative stories values, are universal
news values.

News Gathering and Reporting COm

5/8/2022 12
103
 Proximity

• Did something happen close to home, did it

involve people from here?
• A plane crash in India will make headlines in
Delhi, but it is unlikely to be front-page news in
Egypt unless the plane was carrying Egyptian
passengers

News Gathering and Reporting COm

5/8/2022 13
103
 Size
PLZ Refer to UR Story if it is applicable

• How big the size of people who affected by it?

• Size is always important.
• The bigger the disaster the more likely for it to
be reported, but proximity trumps even size.
• A disaster at home will attract more detailed and
longer coverage than a bigger one far away.
• (T&F) Proximity trumps size

News Gathering and Reporting COm

5/8/2022 14
103
 Important & Interesting
PLZ Refer to UR Story if it is applicable

• Different groups of people have different

lifestyles and concerns that make them
interested in different types of news.
• A radio news program targeted at younger
listeners might include stories about music or
sports stars that would not feature in a business
newspaper aimed at older, wealthier readers.

News Gathering and Reporting COm

5/8/2022 15
103
 Important & Interesting

• A weekly magazine that covers medical news

would report on the testing of an experimental
drug because the doctors who read the
publication presumably would be interested.
• But unless the drug is believed to cure a well-
known disease, most general-interest local TV.
Channels would ignore the story.

News Gathering and Reporting COm

5/8/2022 16
103
 Important & Interesting

• News organizations see their work as a public

service, so news is made of information that people
need to know in order to go about their daily lives
and to be productive citizens in a democracy.
• Most news organizations are keen to include items
that will draw audience interesting.
• Those two characteristics need not be in conflict.
• Some of the best stories on any given day, in fact,
are both important and interesting.
News Gathering and Reporting COm
5/8/2022 17
103
 Prominence, Elitism
PLZ Refer to UR Story if it is applicable

Elitism refers to elite nations and elite people,

Powerful countries and powerful people have more
access to the media than ordinary people and the
news media favor the information they offer
In a recycle way, the news media reinforce elites
power by privileging the information they offer and
amplifying it.
A glance at any newspaper or news bulletin would
conclude that the more powerful a person or country,
the more likely their doings are to be reported..

News Gathering and Reporting COm

5/8/2022 18
103
 Prominence, Elitism

The Question is; is a well-known person involved?

Ordinary activities can become news if they

involve a prominent person like a prime minister or
a film star.
That plane crash in India would make headlines
around the world if one of the passengers were a
famous movie star.

News Gathering and Reporting COm

5/8/2022 19
103
 Prominence, Elitism

Celebrity lives are also covered. In this case, it is not about

power but about familiarity.
People feel they ‘know’ those who appear on their screens.
The minor events of their lives are followed as though they
were friends whose lives we are intimately attached to.
Through familiarity and repetition, those people achieve a
certain level of status that gives them a level of power.
That is why advertisers and companies are keen to get
‘celebrity’ endorsements. Elite people are easier to access
and tend to get more coverage.

News Gathering and Reporting COm

5/8/2022 20
103
 Additional news values

Celebrity stories concerning people who are already

famous.
Entertainment, stories concerning sex, show
business, human interest, animals, an unfolding
drama, or offering opportunities for humorous
treatment, entertaining photographs or witty headlines.
Surprise, stories with an element of surprise and/or
contrast.
Bad news, Stories with negative overtones such as
conflict or tragedy.
Good news, stories with positive overtones such as
rescues and cures
News Gathering and Reporting COm
5/8/2022 21
103
 Writing

• Writing is the way to turn news into

professional journalism work.
• If the reporter is a news-collector who collects
the information, but does not write it up into
final form, he is not doing journalism work.

5/8/2022 News Gathering and Reporting COm 103 22

 Mental Checklist

• To be considered complete, good news stories

should inform the audience the most of five Ws
and How questions
• The information collected by reporter should
provide answers for the audience questions.
• if you remember to ask ‘who, what, where,
when, why’ (and ‘how’), you will cover the main
points. Depending on the complexity of the story,
a reporter might ask those questions in what we
call “mental checklist” which include some of the
next questions:
5/8/2022 News Gathering and Reporting COm 103 23
 WHO

• Who is involved in this story?

• Who is affected by it?
• Who is the best person to tell the story?
• Who is missing from this story?
• Who has more information about this?
• Who is in conflict in this story? Do they have
anything in common?
• Who else should I talk to about this?
5/8/2022 News Gathering and Reporting COm 103 24
 WHAT

• What happened?
• What is the point of this story?
• What does the reader, viewer, or listener need to
know to understand this story?
• What surprised me?
• What is the most important single fact I learned?
• What am I really trying to say?
• What is the history here?
• What happens next?
• What can people do about it?
5/8/2022 News Gathering and Reporting COm 103 25
 WHERE, WHEN

• Where did this happen?

• Where else should I go to get the full story?
• Where is this story going next?
WHEN
• When did this happen?
• When did the turning points occur in this story?
• When should I report this story?
• When will it end?
5/8/2022 News Gathering and Reporting COm 103 26
 Why

• Why is this happening? Is it an isolated case or

part of a trend?
• Why are people behaving the way they are?
What are their motives?
• Why does this story matter? Why should
anyone watch, read, or listen to it?
• Why am I sure I have this story right?

5/8/2022 News Gathering and Reporting COm 103 27

 How

• How did this happen?

• How will things will be different because of what
happened?
• How will this story help the reader, listener, or
viewer?
• How did I get this information? Is the attribution
clear?
• How would someone describe this story to a
friend?
• How will it end?
5/8/2022 News Gathering and Reporting COm 103 28
 News Gathering and Reporting
COm 103 29

Focus of Story

• Reporters must use their news judgment to

decide
• what is most important to include in a story
• in what order to put it.
• And decide what to leave out.

• To make those decisions choose a central point

or a theme for the story, which called a focus.

5/8/2022
 News Gathering and Reporting
COm 103 30

Focus of Story
• The focus of a story is the answer to the
question, “What is this story really about?”.
• To determine the focus, ask yourself those five
questions:
• • What’s the news?
• • What’s the story?
• • What’s the image?
• • How can I tell it in six words?
• • So what?
5/8/2022
 News Gathering and Reporting
COm 103 31

Next Lecture
• Quiz
• Later News structure orStory Formats
Practical applications

5/8/2022
5 News Gathering and
Reporting COm 103 32
/
8
/
2
0
2
2
Thank you

Dr. Ahmed H. El-Saman

News Gathering and Reporting COm 103
5/8/2022
33