Week 2

Lecture 2
The Nature of News
In this chapter you will learn:
1. How convergence and the forces of technology are
reshaping Media.
2. What the news is, including the elements of a good
story, the presentation of news in different media
3. principles of good journalism and journalists’
responsibilities.
4. How to apply principles of accuracy and fairness and
how to avoid bias.
5. How to distinguish news from commentary and
opinion.
 CONVERGENCE IN
JOURNALISM
O Convergence is the term that describes efforts
to use the different strengths of different
media to reach broader audiences and tell the
world’s stories in new ways.
O Convergence demands of journalists new
skills and new flexibility.
types of Media Convergence
O The three main types of Media
Convergence are:
1. Technological Convergence
2. Economic Convergence
3. Cultural Convergence 
Technological Convergence
the forces of technology are
reshaping journalism.
O Convergence has allowed journalists to work
together to create news stories for television,
online, radio and print publications. 

O It has been shaped by the combination of the

media through the rapid changes of
technology.
 WHAT NEWS IS
The criteria that professional reporters and
editors use to decide what news is can be
summarized in three words:
 Relevance
 Usefulness
 Interest
 Conti……
O Relevance, usefulness and interest for a specific
audience are the broad guidelines for judging the news
value of any event, issue or personality.

O These criteria apply generally, but each journalist and

each news organization uses them in a specific context
that gives them particular meaning. That context is
supplied by the audience—the reader, listener or
viewer.
 Elements of a Good News Story

O Within the broad news standards of relevance, usefulness and

interest, journalists look for more specific elements in each
potential story. The most important elements are these:

O Impact The potential impact of a story is another way of

measuring its relevance and usefulness. How many people are
affected by an event or awareness? How seriously does it but
affect them?

O Conflict: Conflict is a recurring theme in all storytelling,

whether the stories told are journalism, literature or drama.
Struggles between people, among nations or with natural
forces make fascinating reading and viewing.
 Conti.
O Novelty. Novelty is another element common to journalism
and other kinds of stories. People or events may be interesting
and therefore newsworthy just because they are unusual
O Prominence. Names make news. The bigger the name, the
bigger the news. Both prominence and novelty can be, and
often are, exaggerated to produce “news” that lacks real
relevance and usefulness.
O Proximity. Generally, people are more interested in and
concerned about what happens close to home. When they read
or listen to national or international news, they often want to
know how it relates to their own community.
 Conti…
O Timeliness. News is supposed to be new.

O Solutions. Scholars and audiences alike complain that

journalists too often report problems and controversies
without offering solutions.

More and more journalists are seeking out expert sources and
inviting audience members not only to explain complex
problems but also to suggest solutions.
How Different Media Present the
News
O The preceding list suggests two important
things about news. First, not all news is
serious, life-and-death stuff.
O The journalistic conversation that holds a
society together includes talk of crime, politics
and world affairs, of course, but it also
includes talk of everyday life. It includes
humor and gossip. All of that can be news.
Second, news is more than a collection of
facts.
How Different Media Present the
News
O The news media can be broadly divided into five
categories: Print (Newspaper/Magazine), Electronic (TV /
Radio) and Internet (Online news portals / websites).

O Different media deliver us the news differently, though the

core information and basic journalistic values remain
unchanged.
 Principles of Good Journalism

“The purpose of journalism is to provide

people with the information they need to
be free and self-governing.”
Principles of Good Journalism
there are 10 principles of good Journalism
1. Journalism’s first obligation is to the truth.
2. Its first loyalty is to citizens.
3. Its essence is a discipline of verification.
4. Its practitioners must maintain independence
from those they cover.
5. Journalism must serve as an independent
monitor of power.
6. It must provide a forum for public criticism and
negotiation.
7. It must strive to make the significant interesting and
relevant.
8. It must keep the news comprehensive and
proportional.
9. Its practitioners must be allowed to exercise their
personal conscience.
10.Citizens, too, have rights and responsibilities when
it comes to the news
Journalists’ Responsibilities in a Democracy

The efforts to reform or restore journalism recognize

these vital functions of journalists in a free society:
 Journalists report the news. News reporting, the
first and most obvious function of journalists, is
the foundation of the rest.
 Journalists monitor power. The power most
often are concerned about is the power of
government. Lately, private power has become
more of a worry and more of a source of news.
Journalists’ Responsibilities in a Democracy

 Journalists uncover injustice. A television

reporter pursues a tip and eventually uncovers
a pattern of sexual abuse and no enforcement
that changes the culture at the nation’s military
academies.
 Journalists tell compelling stories that
delight us and some that sadness us.
Journalists’ Responsibilities in a Democracy

 Journalists sustain communities. These

communities may be small towns, cities or even virtual
communities of people connected only by the Internet.
Through their reporting, monitoring, revealing and
storytelling, journalists serve as the nervous system of
the community.
 Journalists curate information. With so much
material from so many unknown sources flooding the
Internet, an increasingly important role for journalists is
that of curator—collecting, sorting and verifying
information
Journalists’ Responsibilities in a Democracy

 Journalists set the record straight. Another

is “gatekeeping,” the process by which some
events and ideas become news and others do
not. Today the gatekeeping function has
largely evolved into curating or navigating,
guiding readers and viewers through oceans of
fact, rumor and fantasy in search of solid
meaning.
ACCURACY, FAIRNESS AND BIAS

O Accuracy is the most important characteristic

of any story, great or small, long or short.
Every name must be spelled correctly; every
quote must be just what was said; every set of
numbers must add up. And that still isn’t good
enough. You can get the details right and still
mislead unless you are accurate with context,
too.
O Accuracy and fairness are related, but they are
not the same. Being fair requires asking
yourself if you have done enough to uncover all
the relevant facts and have delivered those facts
in an impartial manner, without favoring one
side or another in a story.
O The relationship between accuracy and fairness
—and the differences between them—is shown
clearly in this analogy from the world of sports.
O Fairness requires that you as a reporter try to
find every viewpoint on a story.
Dealing with Bias
How to distinguish news from commentary and opinion.

O Though there’s debate about just how objective a

reporter can possibly be, journalists and scholars
all agree about one thing: Reporting the news is
not the same as expressing an opinion.
O The primary goal of a news story is to inform.
Whether in print, on television or radio, or online,
a reporter’s job is to communicate pertinent facts,
together with enough background information to
help the audience understand those facts.
O
 News vs. Opinion
O News reports are impartial accounts of a story
based on the facts, and avoid false balances by
portraying all sides in relation to the truth.
While it is generally understood that no report
is 100 per cent entirely bias free, news reports
are the articles specifically mandated to check
all forms of bias and self-interpretation at the
door.
 News vs. Opinion
O At The Case, opinions are the medium to
access the paper's commitment to free
expression, where we welcome different
perspectives.
O In professional newsrooms, journalists who
write opinions and journalists who write news
are separated, to respect and protect the
objectivity of reporting from the insert of
personal biases.
 Opinion vs.commentary
O Accuracy and fairness are paramount. By
contrast, the primary goal of opinion writers
and speakers is to persuade.

O A commentator is expressing a point of view

rather than reporting the views of others.
 End
O Why do different newspapers and
channels give a different spin to
the same news events?