Final Edited What is News Handout 140901

8/9/2019 Final Edited What is News Handout 140901

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FUNDAMENTALS OF REPORTING

September 1, 2014

WHAT IS NEWS?

It is obvious that anyone who is aspiring to be a reporter is going to be asked to

write news stories. Equally obvious is that to do so successfully, (s)he will need to

know what news is. ell, trying to de!ne news adequately is a challenge. "ere,

for instance, is what one dictionary says news is#

(1) a report of recent events (2) () $aterial reported in a

newspaper

or news periodical or in a newscast (b)$atter that is

newsworthy.

I a$ sure we all agree that those de!nitions are accurate% the question, however, is

are they helpful& 'o they help you to deter$ine how to go about the business ofwriting a news story& he answer, I think, is e$phatically no.

o what is news& "ow can we de!ne the ter$ in a way that enables the would*be

reporter to deter$ine for hi$+herself whether or not the story in which (s)he is

interested is in fact newsworthy& he best place to start is, as the dictionary

suggests, with the daily newspapers. If you read the$ regularly, you will be able to

co$e up with your own idea of what $akes news news although you will probably

still be hard*pressed to oer a $ore satisfactory de!nition than the dictionary. -y

advice is to settle for understanding what newsworthiness is, being able to udge

unerringly whether a particular ite$ deserves to have a news story written about it.

In the real world of the newsroo$, the quality that drives that activity is called

news udge$ent. /ecause news udge$ent is not an e0act science, it is not the

si$ple $atching of an event with a list of ele$ents to deter$ine whether the event

constitutes news. It is akin to the si0th sense that a custo$s o1cer uses to decide

to ask a traveller in the green line to open his+her bags. /ut let us see if we can2t do

a little better than that.

W!" #re$?

Essentially, what leads editors to give the green light to a story is the answer to the

question ho cares& hen an editor feels that there are large nu$bers ofordinary people or a si3eable group of people (for e0a$ple, boat owners or people

who plant kitchen gardens) who are interested in the subect $atter of a story, then

that story stands a good chance of being given space in the paper. 4f course, there

are concerns of taste that are relevant here as well because it is not everything that

large nu$bers of people care about that will be given space in a self*respecting

newspaper. o illustrate, I a$ sure you have heard the saying e0 sells./ut there


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are $any, $any se0 stories that are out there but not in the newspapers. I don2t

think we need say any $ore about that.

e0, children and ani$als are three ele$ents that are virtual automatic

news$akers. 5nd I a$ sure you have yourself been irresistibly drawn to a story on a

newspaper page which involves a child or an ani$al. 5ll three of these ele$ents areeasily recogni3ed% you don2t have to de!ne the$. 5nd a fourth auto$atic

news$aker that needs no de!nition is, of course, sport, which gets its own section

in $ost newspapers.

"ere, then, in alphabetical order, are so$e $ore ele$ents that are rather $ore

di1cult to pin down because they are $uch $ore elusive to grasp.

Te% &e' eeme%t$ ") %e*$

+"%-#t

hen the 6ussian leader decided that 7ri$ea and later 8kraine really belonged to6ussia and should therefore be occupied by her troops, newspapers the world over *

including in countries that were not likely to be aected in any way * reported the

news. i$ilarly, when last $onth 9a$es :oley was beheaded and ;resident 4ba$a

began to give active consideration to declaring war on II, that too was big news

the world over. hy& /ecause people are interested in con


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'oes the na$e 9a$es :oley ring a bell& It should. "is story only began to interest

$ost of us after he was shown being beheaded on the Internet. "owever, for the

two years he spent in captivity, 5$erican and /ritish newspapers were consistently

reporting on eorts to locate hi$.

he story of 7aster e$enya, the outh 5frican athlete who was required toundergo a se0 test after she won the ??$ at the orld 7ha$pionships in /erlin a

few years ago, is a !ne e0a$ple of a sports story that quickly beca$e a hu$an

interest story.

5 little closer ho$e, when Expressreporter Douis / "o$er collapsed and died at the

an :ernando =eneral "ospital, that got reported on the E0press front page, of

course, and the story was also carried in the other two dailies. "ad he died quietly

in his bed, that would probably not have been front page news but it would probably

still have $ade the papers. 5nother e0a$ple is the story about the two cousins

fro$ 7entral rinidad who u$ped into the =uaya$are 6iver to save an unknown

$an2s life. 4r the wo$an fro$ the deep outh who got lost in the forest andeventually found her way back out unassisted $ore than a week later.

5ndwhen an unhar$ed baby was pulled out of the ;ort*au*;rince rubble one full

week after the devastating 9anuary C> tre$or a couple of years ago, what fascinates

us about that story is what ournalis$ calls "u$an Interest. It is also "u$an

Interest that draws us as readers to the story when a reporter interviews a

scholarship winner or the top E5 pupil or a girl who was born with no hands and

has learned how to write with her toes.

N"et'

5 new device that enables a driver to get his car sideways into a parking spot& 5n

electric car that really works& 5 bicycle that has a reverse gear& 5 book that does

not have to be read sequentially to $ake sense of the story& 5 building that has to

be entered fro$ the top


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co$$unication. I think it $ight even be true to say that $any s$art phone owners

probably could not survive without that relatively recently invented piece of

equip$ent.

5nother e0a$ple of particular i$portance in today2s fuel*gu33ling, environ$entally*

conscious world is a solar*powered car. ere so$eone to develop one that worksreally e1ciently in all cli$ates, it would be big news all over the world.

Pr"m-%e%#e

:or al$ost two years now, I have had $y eye on -r Ganton2s ob% that hasn2t $ade

the papers. /ut when ;ennelope /eckles decided that she had had enough of Jeith

6owley2s leadership and was going to try for his ob as ;G- ;olitical Deader, if you

were rinidadian, you would have had to be on -ars not to hear about it. 5nd if you

dropped dead in the ne0t few $inutes because this class is so boring, you $ight get

a little $ention on ;age CB because it2s not every day that a student is literally

bored to death. /ut when a cultural icon like 9it a$aroo or the -ighty parrow dies

or a co$plete inco$petent who$ everybody knows to be an e$pty*headed

loud$outh gets na$ed to a high*pro!le $inistry in a govern$ent reshuKe, both

events $ake ;age 4ne. hy& he answer is ;ro$inence.

;resident 4ba$a wore a light*coloured suit when he addressed the nation about the

6ussian invasion of 8Ikraine. 'id you notice& -any of the 5$erican newspapers did.

hy& ;ro$inence. Gobody but you and your boyfriend cares what you wear but

what the 5$erican ;resident wears is big, big news. -any people, angry at

so$ething =overn$ent has done or not done, say that they are going to take the

govern$ent to court% precious few of those stories $ake the front page. hen,

however, for$er govern$ent $inister 9ack arner announced his decision to takelegal action against the ;; for passing the 7onstitution 5$end$ent /ill (which, by

the way, is foolish since a bill is not yet law, it2s the lead in all three newspapers the

ne0t $orning. he 7haguanas est -;, you see, is not ust so$e peewat who

happens to sit beside you in class but he is a highly visible personality who has the

public ear and is in the public eye. -uch $ore i$portance is attached to what he

does and says because of the position he occupies in society.

i$ilarly, Jaren Gune3*esheira was not the only person to break her !0ed deposit

when she discovered in 'ece$ber >??@ that 7lico was in trouble. 'o you know of

any others& ;robably not. It is ;ro$inence that e0plains why the $edia infor$ed

us about what the then :inance -inister had done and never bothered to na$e thescores of others who had done the e0act sa$e thing.

Pr"-m-t'

/ecause newspapers operate in a particular society and cater necessarily to a

particular clientele, you $ight say that news, like charity, begins at ho$e. ;eople in

maybe interested in what happens in -anhattan but they are certain to take


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an active interest in the goings*on in -orvant, -aloney and -arabella. /ut it is

easy to overesti$ate the i$portance of ;ro0i$ity. o$ething truly e0traordinary

would have had to have taken place in ;ort of pain, for e0a$ple, on epte$ber CC,

>??C to knock the destruction of the Gew Lork win owers o the front page of the

editions of epte$ber C> that year. 5nd what event within had any serious

chance of superseding the shocking 9une death of -ichael 9ackson, the MC*year*oldJing of ;op, in 9une !ve years ago&

Even before the e$ergence of the global village, ;ro0i$ity was a category that

needed very careful handling.

T-me-%e$$

i$e is what de!nes news. In one of his $e$orable Expresscolu$ns, the late

Jeith $ith wrote about an editor who used to say that there is nothing $ore

irrelevant than yesterday2s newspaper. hat $akes the point that what is new

today $ay very well not be so new to$orrow. Gews (refer again to the dictionary

de!nition above) is a report of a recentevent ($y e$phasis) but so$e events

that occurred as recently as yesterday so$eti$es no longer constitute news. 5nd

as new infor$ation about old events co$es to hand, stu which had stopped being

news $ay once $ore qualify for the tag. i$eliness, then, is not a synony$ of

recency but, as far as news is concerned, recency is very often a necessary part of

ti$eliness.

i$eliness also e0plains why Newsdayso$eti$es reports court stories as if the

events had ust taken place. It2s bad ournalis$ (the best practice of which

ulti$ately involves both truth and accuracy) but it helps us to understand what

ti$eliness really $eans.

em#3be$t

14001

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NEWS ARITHMETI+

C pitbull N C $an N C bite O G4 GE

C $an N C pitbull N C bite O GE

C ordinary $an N C ordinary life O G4 GE

C ordinary $an N C e0traordinary adventure O GE

C $an N C ordinary achieve$ent O G4 GE

C $an N C e0traordinary achieve$ent O GE

C ordinary $an N C ordinary life of BP years O G4 GE

C ordinary $an N C ordinary life of C?? years O GE

C ordinary husband N C ordinary wife O G4 GE

C -usli$ husband N three wives O G4 GE

C 7atholic husband N three wives O GE


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C bank cashier N C wife N Q>?,??? O G4 GE

C bank cashier O Q>?,??? O GE

C $an N C dead wife N C unused gun O G4 GE

C $an N C dead wife N C huge insurance policy O GE

C $aster bats$an N RM good innings O G4 GE

C bats$an N C great innings O GE

C footballer N C? goals in one season O G4 GE

C footballer N C? goals in one $atch O GE

C !retruck over a cli O -5DD GE

C !retruck over a cli N C QS$ bill O /I= GE

C $an s$oking bush in a hotel roo$ O G4 GE

C $inister s$oking bush in a hotel roo$ O /I= GE

>? $inisters !red in four years O /I= GE

Final Edited What is News Handout 140901

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Transcript of Final Edited What is News Handout 140901