News Values

News values are the factors that help to explain how journalists and editors decided that certain news stories were accepted as newsworthy whilst others were not. These can also be applied to radio news bulletins.

Immediacy - Has it happened recently? Is the story 'breaking'?
This usually pushes a news story to the front page or on a radio it will be the first presented story.

Familiarity - Is it culturally or geographically close to us in London/Britain/Europe/USA?

Amplitude - Is it a big event or one which involves large numbers of people?

Frequency - Does the event happen often?

Surprise - Is it an unusual or unexpected event?

Impact - Can we identify with the story as having a profound effect on our own lives? Does the story contain elements that would make us feel threatened?

Predictability - Did we expect it to happen?

Continuity - Has this story already been defined as news? Is it part of an ongoing or long-running story?

Conflict - Does the story contain drama in describing disagreements, arguments, fights or battles between two or more people/organisations?

Elite People - Does the story contain concern well-known people, such as celebrities?

Personalisation - Is it a human interest story?

Negativity - Is it bad news?

Scandal - Is the story likely to provoke moral outrage from parts of the audience?

Balance - The story may be selected to balance other news, such as a human survival story to balance a number of stories concerning death. 

When analysing news stories in more detail I will look out for what news values they contain. This will help me when creating my own news stories and incorporating different news values making them newsworthy.