News Values

Following my survey, the responses about what attracted people to a story prompted me to do some research into ‘News Values’.

News Values determine how much coverage a story is given by a newspaper, or in other words, how worthy it is of having coverage. For my newspaper, I will therefore have to consider how relevant  it is to my audience of young people, and how  relevant it is to my local area.

According to my research, There is a number of criteria to consider in News Values, which I then related to my own newspaper.

• Frequency: Newspapers are often published late at night ready for the next day, and therefore it is important that evens both fit well with this schedule and are sudden and recent, i.e.: have not been covered in the previous day's issue. On going and long term/events and issues are therefore going to receive less coverage unless there is a sudden change.
• My newspaper: Because of this, my main article is likely to be something that has happened the previous day and not something that is an on-going issue, as this will bore people especially if it is something they have already heard about.
• Example: A headline in the EDP: 'Ambulance service needs up to £30m every year to get additional resources to reach targets' later goes on to say 'revealed today'. This is an example of how although this may have been a long term problem, it was only covered because something new and valuable happened. 

• Negativity and Conflict: 'Bad' news is often more dramatic and more controversial than 'good' news. It is more of a talking point and is therefore considered more newsworthy in news values.
• My newspaper: Many of the respondents in my survey commented on being attracted to controversial news, which relates to this idea of negative news as this often is. It is therefore something that I will focus on. However, my ideology is not to create a negative perspective on young people and teenagers and therefore this will be something I will carefully consider when deciding what articles to feature.
• Example: On the Wymondham and Attleborough Mercury website on the 27th November, headlines include phrases such as 'Driver suffers' 'Residents' fears' 'Police appeal'. Much of the coverage was negative but there were also many positive aspects, which I therefore believe in local news there tends to be more positivity. 

• Unambiguity: This concentrates on making the event of the story clear to the audience, without having a complex background to understand before, as well as story that has a clear interpretation.
• My newspaper: This is relevant to my newspaper as a common problem, as many of my respondents pointed out, with newspapers for teenagers is that it is too 'boring' and 'complicated' and therefore by featuring unambiguous stories, it will be clear to my audience and not complex to read quickly and concisely.
• Example:There was an article in the Norwich Evening News about 'Movember' and in order to ensure the readers knew what this event was they summed it up: 'where people grow facial hair during the month of November to raise funds' meaning that those who were previously unaware now knew clearly what was being talked about.  

• Personalisation: Readers can relate better to news stories where there is individuals involved as opposed to stories with no human 'interest' in them. 
• My newspaper: Someone in my survey pointed out not reading stories that had any relation to them, and therefore I feel it is important to feature my target audiences ages in the stories I used in order to personalise my story as best as possible to my audience.
• Example: There is an example of this on the 'MailOnline' website where all animal stories tend to be featured at the bottom of the page as they tend to have the least interest in them.

• Meaningfulness: This relates to personalisation in that the audience has to identify with the topic and share a similar life with the people involved. 
• My newspaper: This further emphasises the use of teenagers in my newspaper to help my audience relate.
• Example: 'North Norfolk District Council call to save Coasthopper bus service from cuts' - this is clearly aimed at the people who use the service who can therefore relate to the problems they are going through and know that something is being done about it. 

• Predictability: If an event is already known to be happening it is likely to be covered.
• My newspaper: I could relate this to my newspaper in that I could include both a mix of recent shocking events along with predictable events in order to make it as realistic as possible. 
• Example: The coverage of Wymondham's Lemon Day in one of my previous research newspapers, clearly there was an awareness of this happening before and this is why they covered it as one of the front page stories as well as a recent unpredictable event. 

• Proximity: This is  is important as it concerns how close an event is to the audience as to how valuable it is worth publishing.
• My newspaper: This is particularly important for my newspaper as it is local, and therefore the news the news must be relevant to the local area. If it is not ‘local’ news, but regional, national, and international, I will ensure it is related back to my local area whether through people or events. 
• Example: In the Eastern Daily Press’ coverage of the Philippines storm, they covered the entire international story but also had a section in which a local woman, from the Philippines, talked about how it had affected her family, not only adding human value but giving it a closer proximity.