Many thanks to the Center for News Literacy.

1. Week 5
What is News

3. TEST REMINDER

4. TEST REMINDER
Test in week 7,

5. TEST REMINDER
Test in week 7,
Covering all material through
week 6:

6. TEST REMINDER
Test in week 7,
Covering all material through
week 6:
Lectures, readings, homework,
videos, recitation materials

7. What is News
and Who Decides?

8. What is News?
August 28, 2011

9. A More Typical News Day:
Differences in News Decisions
Sept. 16, 2011

10. Definitions of News
News is What’s On Society’s Mind

11. Definitions of News
News Is any “Scoop”:
Information That Makes a
Reporters Primal Heart Beat Faster

12. Definitions of News
News is What an Editor Thinks is News

13. Definitions of News
News is Information Powerful
People Don’t Want You to Have

14. Definitions of News
News is
Independent,
Reliable,
Accurate
Information
That Citizens
Need to Be Free

15. Definitions of News

16. Definitions of News
“It’s amazing that the amount of news that
happens in the world every day always
just exactly fits the newspaper.”

17. Definitions of News
News is What “We” think is fit and proper

18. Definitions of News
News is Information
About a Subject of
Some Public
Interest That is
Shared and
Subject to the
Journalistic Process
of Verification

19. Four Factors That
Determine News

20. Four Factors That
Determine News
1. Universal News Drivers
2. Editorial Judgment
3. The Audience
4. Profits and Competition

21. Factor 1: Universal News Drivers
Importance
Timeliness
Proximity
Magnitude
Prominence
Conflict
Human Interest
Change: (Progress and Regress)
Relevance
Unusualness

22. Universal News Drivers
Importance

23. Universal News Drivers
Timeliness

24. Universal News Drivers
Proximity

25. Universal News Drivers
Magnitude

26. Universal News Drivers
In related a*ack, 77 NATO
troops injured by truck bomb
Magnitude

27. Universal News Drivers
Prominence

28. Universal News Drivers
Conflict

29. Universal News Drivers
Human Interest

30. Universal News Drivers
Change

31. Universal News Drivers
Of 305 species tracked by
the Audubon Society, more
than half are spending the
winter about 35 miles
farther north than they did
40 years ago, according to a
study to be released today.
Change

32. Universal News Drivers
Syracuse, Pitt defect from Big East
Change

33. Universal News Drivers
Relevance

34. Universal News Drivers
Unusualness

35. Universal News Drivers
Unusualness

36. Universal News Drivers
Unusualness

37. Which Drivers Apply?

38. Factor 2: Editorial Judgment
What’s Interesting vs. What’s Important
Who is the Audience?
Do You Give the Audience What it Wants
or What it Needs?
What is the Competition Doing?
News Presentation

39. Real-time News Judgment
(Your Turn in the Uneasy Chair)
Place Each Story on the Matrix

40. Importance
4
3
2
1 Interest
‐4 ‐3 ‐2 ‐1 0 1 2 3 4
‐1
‐2
‐3
‐4

41. Place the story on the matrix

42. Place the story on the matrix

43. Place the Story on the Matrix

44. Place the Story on the Matrix

45. Place the story on the matrix

46. Factor 3, Audience
What It “Needs”
vs.
What It Wants

47. Audience-Driven
The Importance of the Customer
in Making Decisions

48. Audiences Dictate (That’s You)
Local and National News Broadcasts
Demonstrate Different Definitions

49. Audience-Driven?
Striking a Balance

50. How the Internet Redefines “News Judgment”
Power shifts from editor to consumer

51. Why Is it big in Newsday, buried in the Times?
Factor 4: Competition & Profit

52. Why News Media Couldn’t Resist This Story
Factor 4: Competition & Profit

53. What is News?
And Who Decides?

54. What is News?
And Who Decides?
(You…sort-of)

55. News Log Assignment
The News Drivers
Due in class next week