News and Newsworthy

News is intangible, a compilation of mediated messages assembled according to the norms and constraints of a major social institution composed of businesses and dictated by economic imperatives. A distinctive writing style and image portrayal process distinguish news from all other communication formats.

Perhaps it is easier to define news in negative terms—underscoring what it is not. News is neither an essay nor a term paper, neither a short story nor a novel with scenes, characters, plotline, or climax. It is more than just a recorded voice, photograph, or video clip. Indeed, there is little consensus as to how to definitively characterize “news” or “newsworthy.” Scholars, historians, and critics continue to analyze journalism's role in society and the cultural implications of news work.

Journalism historian Robert Park (1940) suggested that news texts have replaced the town crier of yore who walked through the streets singing out the time of day, announcing births, and so forth. Today, news takes the shape of its sponsoring mass medium, and the form, content, and production of print and electronic news differ substantially. Whereas print news is passive and static one-way communication, television news is active with both words and visuals. Web-based news offers interactive, two-way communication. Indeed, reporters—or journalists—still circulate knowledge, making public property out of social and cultural assets and, as Gaye Tuchman (1978) wrote, “transform[ing] mere happenings into publicly discussable events” (p. 3). They make abundantly available to all information that otherwise would be inaccessible due to geographic challenges and resource shortages. In the process, the news fosters a sense of community, defines who we are, and suggests what is important.

Contemporary journalists are professionals who subscribe to democratic ideals and are bound by codes of ethics as defined by trade organizations such as the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ). Even though journalism is not a licensed profession, it is a respected and legitimate one that adheres to standards of fairness, accuracy, and objectivity. Most journalists began their career by earning a college degree. Journalism students across the United States are trained both in the classroom and in the field as apprentices or interns who hone their craft and learn practical skills such as how to cover beats, cultivate sources, and navigate newsroom politics.

In the classroom, budding journalists develop a “nose for news”—shorthand for defining “newsworthiness”—and memorize and internalize important clues known as news values. For example, “impact,” “importance,” and “the unusual” define about 75 percent of all news stories. Similarly, a sociologist who studied newsroom cultures at CBS, NBC, Newsweek, and Time resolved that “enduring” news values such as “ethnocentrism” and “moderatism” enable journalists to decide what is news. “If it bleeds, it leads” is a popular newsworthiness barometer used by television news workers, who seem to attach importance to visual violence. About 100 years ago, legendary news editor Charles A. Dana simply defined newsworthiness in terms of novelty: “When a dog bites a man, that's not news. But if a man bites a dog, that's news.” However, today's media scholars posit that news is the end product of a process that is far more complex than this.

...