refLECTURE IX: "Human Sieves"

News values. It decides what is news and what is not. Adhering to its law are the 'human sieves', also known as editors. They sift through the torrent of potential stories determining which are 'newsworthy' according to news values. But what grants a story the prestigious title of 'newsworthy'? There's more to an editor's decision than simply an eye for a good story in addition to years of experience.

Unfortunately, like so many things in journalism, news values are not just one 'thing'. Our lecture discussed scholarly definitions, modern reinterpretations and additions. Faced with 'The Big Six', the ten simple steps, and 'The 12+ Factors'... well it was all a bit repetitious. Sure there were a few words changed here and there, additions and subtractions, but I think below covers the most of it. And in no particular order...



Unexpectedness, negativity, meaningfulness, frequency, unambiguity, positivity, conflict, elite persons, elite nations, personalisation, continuity, competition, celebrity, predictability, logistics, recency, prominence, timeliness, uniqueness, exclusivity, magnitude, controversy, follow up, visualness, entertainment, impact, emotion, educational value, (insert breath) and of course, the associated agenda.

"I've had a bellyful of phone hacking..."

But are these all weighted equally? When once 'if it bleeds it leads', now it seems 'if it's local it leads'. But as the cartoon above suggests, do we really have our priorities sorted?

It's generally regarded, the more values a story contains the more 'newsworthy' it is. But it would be virtually impossible to reduce it down to a manageable set of universal news values. The stories newsworthy for Time Magazine, probably aren't the same for Girlfriend. Okay... definitely, they are definitely not the same news values. While each media enterprise has its own tailored set of news values, news is only a couple of things. Four to be precise.

1. Impact. BOOM! Whether it's good, bad, or simply a surprise. Anything that grasps the audiences attention at face value (and possibly makes them say 'Gee Whiz!').
2. Audience Identification.  Whether it's relatable or actually local.
3. Pragmatics. The 'current affairs', everyday 24 hour news.
4. Source Influence. PR. Whether it's word for word off a press release, or a story has been built around it, PR is a valuable source of news.

But it's hard to keep news on the straight and narrow when the threats to newsworthiness are often part of the structure. There's the obvious tension of Journalism Vs. PR. Are journalists using PR as a substitute for 'real' journalism and news? There's also journalism's Ideals Vs. Reality. The ideal is often sacrificed as part of the 24 hour 'churnalism' news cycle, with cost cutting and job losses making it difficult to break the cycle. And in a market dominated by commercial media there's Journalism Vs. Commercialisation of Media and Social Life. Forming a 'corrupt news process... [and] news organisations [who] cut down on serious coverage.'

Have we, those 'formerly known as the audience', moved on from the power of news values? Thanks to new platforms we have more choice than ever before. We can go looking for what and how we consume the news. And if we can't. Well then we'll make it. We are 'produsers'. Or are we just reporting news according to our news values. Effectively adding our own agenda to the mix? Like the cartoon above we like to think that if we get our news from the our own selection of 'amateur' sources (blogs, podcasts, Twitter, etc), we're getting the unaltered 'news', but is this really the case? News values are easily skewed by agendas... but that's for next weeks lecture.