Summary
Contents
The SAGE Key Concepts series provide students with accessible and authoritative knowledge of the essential topics in a variety of disciplines. Cross-referenced throughout, the format encourages critical evaluation through understanding. Written by experienced and respected academics, the books are indispensable study aids and guides to comprehension. Key Concepts in Journalism offers a systematic and accessible introduction to the terms, processes, and effects of journalism;a combination of practical considerations with theoretical issues; and further reading suggestions. The authors bring an enormous range of experience in newspaper and broadcast journalism, at national and regional level, as well as their teaching expertise. This book will be essential reading for students in journalism, and an invaluable reference tool for their professional careers.
News Values
News Values
These are the (somewhat mythical) set of criteria employed by journalists to measure and therefore to judge the ‘newsworthiness’ of events. The news, whether produced by a newspaper or a broadcaster, needs to be interesting, or otherwise appealing, to the target audience. News values, and the notion of newsworthiness that they are derived from, are meant to be the crystallized reflection of, or ‘ground rules’ for deciding, what an identified audience is interested in reading or watching. These ‘ground rules may not be written down or codified by news organizations, but they exist in daily practice and in knowledge gained on the job’ (Harcup and O'Neill, 2001: 261).
The study of news values takes two broad forms: first, journalists and ex-journalists have provided lists ...