5 Chapter 4: Newsworthiness
Newsworthiness
When writing a news story, you first need a newsworthy idea. This chapter will cover the elements of what constitutes news and how to find those ideas. This is harder than you think. Most new journalists think there are countless story ideas bouncing around in their heads. But when you write them down and do a little research, you might learn that many have been done to death. This chapter includes tips for finding fresh ideas for your news stories.
When I was a reporter for a local newspaper, I covered a small town. Readers would call or email me with story ideas that they would want me to write about. Some were worth covering, and some were not newsworthy. Newsworthiness is the quality of a story idea that’s interesting enough to warrant a public report about it.
Reporters use seven elements to evaluate a story idea for newsworthiness. This concept grew out of a research paper by Johan Galtung and Mari Holmboe Ruge in 1965. For the next 50 years, people debated about whether Galtung and Ruge were right. Overall, their criteria held up, though some pointed to a need for updates, according to a 2016 study by three researchers from Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands.
As they write in the abstract: “In recent years, scholars also pointed toward the increasing impact of digital media on journalistic practices of news selection. Likewise, new perspectives on global journalism were introduced into the debate.”
While the news values may require changes with modern technology, learning the basic measurements for a news story is still relevant. Here are the seven to consider when looking for ideas.
- Impact: When I was a reporter, people would call the newspaper to complain about a noisy or problematic neighbor. That may have impacted them and perhaps a few other people on their street, but the annoying neighbor did not impact most of our readers. Impact is the effect of a story on readers. The bigger the impact, the more newsworthy. There is no better example than COVID-19. The virus impacted every country in the world. Most stories have a limited impact.
- Timeliness: If a car accident causes traffic on the way to work, a reader will care more if it is happening now versus last week. Timeliness is the idea that the more recent a story, the more interesting it is to your reader. The older the idea, the less newsworthy.
- Proximity: A story is more interesting to a reader if it happens near them geographically. If there’s a wildfire, a reader will be more interested if it’s in their neighborhood. Look for story ideas that affect readers where they live.
- Prominence: When a famous person does anything, it is more interesting than if unknown people are involved. This is called prominence. You see this all the time in the endless news about celebrity divorces and politicians’ gaffes. Famous people are interesting to readers. Remember, though, your job as a reporter is to give the reader what they want (chocolat