What makes news

We find conflict fascinating. Stories related to war and politics, in addition to having impact, also are often interesting because they contain conflict. If a person is well-known, more readers will be interested than if they have never heard of the person. This includes prominent people in your school or city, not just famous celebrities. Events that happen only rarely are more newsworthy than something that happens frequently.

Stories that make people laugh, cry, get angry, feel sympathy or pity, or be amazed are often the most-read stories in the paper or website. When a story has one or more of the elements of news, it has news value, but some stories have more value to readers than others. Is it timely or immediate? Is it happening nearby? Does it affect the readers or viewers, or have some consequence for their lives?

Is it about someone who is well known? Is it about a conflict or disagreement, or the continuation of one? Does it tug at the heart strings? Is it something everyone is talking about in social media or other news media? Four other considerations of newsworthiness Some are interesting mostly to parents, or to teachers or to retirees. Most do not publish profanity. The discovery is new, and the event is unusual, but it is unlikely to interest anybody other than a specialist or enthusiast.

In a specialist publication this could be big news, but in a general news broadcast or paper it would merit at most a few words.

However, if that same insect was one which had a huge appetite, and which had previously lived on and eaten bush grass and if the new plant on which it had been found was rice, then the story becomes news, because it is significant.

People may not be interested in bugs, but they are interested in food. If this insect is now threatening their crops, it becomes a matter of concern to them. It is news because it is significant. Similarly, if a peasant farmer says that the Roman Catholic Church should ordain women priests, that is not news. If an archbishop says it, it is news, because what he says on the subject is significant.

It is the views of people such as the archbishop which help to form the policy of the Church. Once again, what is interesting or significant in one society may not be interesting or significant in another.

The content of the news may be different, therefore, in different societies, but the way it is identified will be the same.

Most news is automatically about people, because it is the things people do to change the world which makes news. However, news can also be made by non-human sources, such as a cyclone, a bush fire, a drought, a volcanic eruption or an earthquake. It is when reporting these stories that it is important to make sure that the story is centred on people. The cyclone would not matter if it blew itself out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, away from any inhabited islands; the fire could burn for as long as it likes in bush where nobody lives; the Sahara Desert has a near-permanent drought, but in most of it nobody is there to rely on rains; a volcanic eruption or an earthquake which damages nobody's property and injures nobody is really not news.

All these natural disasters only become news when they affect people's lives. Every story can be told in terms of people. Whenever you have a story which tells of how something has happened which affects both people and property, always put the people first. A story which is new, unusual, interesting, significant and about people is going to be a very good story indeed. One way of deciding the strength of a story is to check how many of those five criteria it meets. The same event happening in two different places can have two quite different news values.

A coup in the country next door is still a big story, because it may affect the stability of your own country. However, a coup in a small country in another continent is unlikely to merit more than a few paragraphs. The appeal of local news is that your readers or listeners might know the people or place involved.

Remember, though, that the word "local" means different things to different people. If you broadcast to a wide area or sell your newspaper in many different towns, you must realise that a small story which interests readers in one place, because it is local, may not be of any interest to readers elsewhere.

The average reader, listener or viewer may be a parent, a person wanting a good education for the children, dreaming of buying a car, looking forward to going home on leave, anticipating the next big community feast or festival. You will need to have a very clear understanding of what your own readers or listeners are like. So stories about bride-price or dowries, children, land disputes, new schools, cheaper or dearer fares, or whatever else is important and may affect your average reader, will have personal impact.

People can identify with stories about other people like themselves. So those stories with which many people can identify are stronger than those which only apply to a few. A lot of news will come to you as a journalist without any real effort on your part.

Government handouts, Ministers' speeches and announcements of new developments come into the newsroom after being processed by press officers or public relations officers. Passing on such information, as long as it is genuinely interesting and informative, is an important function of the media, to provide society with the hard facts of what is happening in the country.

It is part of your job as a journalist to sort out what is interesting and informative from the millions of boring words which may be sent to you. There is also news which journalists find for themselves and reveal to the public. This need not be a subject which somebody wants to be kept secret. Many people have a story to tell but do not know how to write a media release. Learn to write press releases that really work and how to maximise their impact.

This hands-on press release course gives delegates a better understanding of how the press works and tips on how to get stories published. Learn more. This PR writing course helps you to write better, tighter and more sharply, to develop the skills to handle different writing styles and shows you how to improve all aspects of your written communication, whatever the audience.

News and Feature Writing. This two-day News and Feature Writing course covers the fundamental introduction to applying your writing to a range of styles, covering the essentials of article structure, style and vocabulary. How the media works; understanding the editorial process How newsrooms are organised How the editorial decision-making process works News as a creative discipline. A great story often does both by using storytelling to make important news interesting.

The public is exceptionally diverse. Though people may share certain characteristics or beliefs, they have an untold variety of concerns and interests. So anything can be news. But not everything is newsworthy.