Stuart Hall once said “news values are one of
the opaque structures of meaning in modern society… journalists speak of the
news as if events select themselves… yet of the millions of events which occur
daily in the world, only a tiny proportion ever become visible as ‘potential
news stories’: and of this proportion, only a small fraction are actually
produced as the day’s news…”. The value we place on ‘news worthy stories’ can
sometimes seem ridiculous as we uncover what readers see as ‘news’, and nine
times out of ten, it’s the bad news that sells more. Once, a ‘good news’ paper
was set up, but failed after only 2 months as their selling rate was so low.
This was also seen in the documentary “If It Bleeds, It Leads!” whose name dictates
their on ‘news worthy stories’.
Seems ‘no news is good news’ is truer than
once thought.
News values must work within the realms of
impact, audience identification, pragmatics and source influence. Impact reels
the reader in; it’s that punch line that makes the readers say “Gee Whiz!”
(Authur MacEwen, US editor) which works by indentifying that audience that it
would impact through culture, location and social values.
One must then turn to the pragmatics of the
situation; the news must be ‘everyday worthy’, current affairs and be practical
to the audience. It then turn to it’s source influence in PR, who seem to be
eternally in a love-to-hate relationship. While journalists constantly criticizes
their ability to control and ‘spin’ situations, they are essentially their other
half as without PR, media wouldn’t function.
So, what do you expect to see when YOU turn on the news?
No comments:
Post a Comment