News Values

News values are the factors defined by Galtung and Ruge that help to explain how journalists and editors decided that certain news stories an image were accepted as newsworthy, while others were not. While they applied these factors to news stories in newspapers, they can also be applied to radio news bulletins.

Immediacy: Has it happened recently? Is the story 'breaking'?

Often pushes the news story to the top of the bulletin.

Familiarity: Is it culturally or geographically close to us in London/Britain/Europe/USA?

This news value becomes even more important with local news coverage.

Amplitude: Is it a big event or one which involves large numbers of people?

This normally pushes stories up the bulletin.

Frequency: Does the event happen?

The news editors could push the news story down the bulletin.

Impact: Can we identify with the story as having a profound effect on our own lives? Does the story contain elements that would make us feel threatened?

Like amplitude a key news value, pushes the story to the top of the bulletin.

Predictability: Did we expect it to happen?
This may push the story towards the bottom.

Surprise: Is it an unusual or unexpected event?
This tends to push the article to the top of the news bulletin and then this will shock the readers because it would be unexpected.

Continuity: Has this story already been defined as news? Is it part of an ongoing or long-running story?
If the news story is huge, the further away it is from the breaking news title, the further down the new bulletin it will appear.

Conflict: Does the story contain drama in describing disagreements, arguments, fights or battles between two or more people/ organisations?
Many of news stories contain this news value and will be at the top of the news bulletin.

Elite people: Does the story concern well-known people, such as celebrities?
This type of story would be found near the top of the news bulletin, especially certain type of radios like Kiss FM, entertainment magazines. These type of stories will focus on celebrities.

Personalisation: Is it a human interest story?

Negativity: Is it bad news?
Pushes up and dominates

Scandal: Is the story likely to provoke moral outrage from parts of the audience?

Balance: The story may be selected to balance other news, such as a human survival story to balance a number of stories concerning death.
Positive stories.