This week we saw the return of the dreaded 'upside-down triangle'. I'm starting to think it might acutally mean something after all.
So, news values are how news agencies rank their news, and how they decide what gets the headline in tomorrows paper, and what gets more focus etc.
Things such as negativity (something bad will always rate better, and recieve more hits on the net, than 'positive' news), locality, recency and elites (people and places) are all news values.
Of course, as with most things, there are always exceptions to the rule. People are often interested in world news, particularly businesspeople and stockholders, people watching Wall St. Community newspapers take the 'elites' idea very differently, but it's still essentially the same.
You may have heard of the saying 'If it bleeds, it leads'. This is a great example of the news value of things such as drama, tradgedy and violence.
A newer type of news value is 'visual attractiveness'. People don't often think about this, but often news will headline on tv or the internet, but won't headline in the newspapers. This is because of the different types of visuals that news has, and the ability to encorporate sound and film into television and website news.
My favourite part of the lecture was discussing the threats to good journalism and news values that contribute to society.
Two main points were mentioned. The commercialisation of media: mergers throughout the world are gradually pooling the sources we get news from. This limits where the public derives their news values everytime a merger takes place.
Public relations: Allowing someone else to do all the work and put all of their own spin on what ever they're selling or announcing is both poor and irresponsible journalism.
The final point was the slow breaking down of the barriers between journalistic media and public generated media. Blogs, twitter and youtube feeds are all slowly shifting the balance of power of the news world. I think it's a good thing
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