Wednesday, 13 June 2012

No News Is Good News, After All


 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?





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