News Values

Journalists are taught either through workplace socialization or college training that events and people may possess any of a half dozen attributes or values that can make them newsworthy. “Scoring” potential stories for those values is one of several routines used by news workers to define, select, and deliver news. This entry explores the history of this routine, explains how it was applied in the past, and evaluates how social media may be forcing changes in its application.

Most news professionals and academics agree that the traditional list of news values includes [Page 1131]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), ...