News Values

Randall S. Sumpter

Journalists are taught either through workplace socialization or college training that events and people may possess any of a half dozen attributes, which can make them newsworthy. Informally “scoring” potential stories for those values is one of several routines used by news workers to define, select, and deliver news. Lists of news values offered by professional and academic authors vary, but most agree upon these six attributes: conflict (struggles featuring people, governments, or social and natural forces), impact (the number of people affected and how much they are affected), proximity (geographic or demographic closeness to the reader, listener, or viewer), timeliness (the more recent, the more newsworthy), prominence (how widely known a person or event is on the local, regional or national and international levels), and novelty (unique or bizarre people and events). Human interest sometimes is cited as a distinct attribute, but many argue that it is a component ...

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