Week Two: First Impressions and Revision

“The First Law of Journalism is simply this: be interesting.” Benton Patterson

Without question, ‘JOUR311 – Newsroom Practice’ was the most daunting subject on my timetable. I liked the subject’s concept of creating a real-life news environment by pitching story ideas to our editor, being responsible for a round and working to deadlines. However, I was worried whether I’d be smart and savvy enough to produce quality copy each week. So I decided then and there in our first class to just concentrate on one story at a time.

In today’s class we did a bit of revision. Here’s the highlight package:

• What makes a story newsworthy or worthy of recycle bin?

News stories have three core criteria: interest, timeliness and clarity (Masterton, 1992, 21). Within these broad headings are six news values: consequence, proximity, conflict, human interest, prominence and novelty (Conley and Lamble, 2006, 83). If your story demonstrates one or more the newsworthiness of your piece can be guaranteed.

• Consequence represents the number of people who stand to be affected by the news, for example, a piece covering the federal election. The second is proximity and it’s important to keep in mind that a local murder for example, is of more interest that the same story overseas.
• Conflict is the staple of news. Conflict can include leadership clashes, the war in Iraq, local councils vs. state government, neighbours, sports teams and take overs.
• Human-interest stories focus on low-key people who are genuinely thrust into the limelight because of misfortune or good luck, for example, a lotto winner. Tragedy and overcoming adversity are at its core.
• Prominence has to do with stories about “who they are people” vs. what they’ve done, for example, Jennifer Aniston’s new boyfriend revealed. Public figures always have priority.
• And finally novelty stories describe the strange, odd, rare and unusual news, for example, it was John B Bogart, city editor of The New York Sun a century ago, who came up with a classic description: ‘When a dog bites a man, that is not news because it happens so often. But if a man bites a dog, it’s news’ (Conley and Lamble, 2006, 79). Readers do not want to be told commonplace things.