1. Callum Harrison
Ethics And News Values
I am going to be writing an essay for part of my assignment, my essay will analyse two
different types of news stories. The stories I will analyse will be a serious/sensational story
and an invasion of privacy story.
The first story I will be analysing is the story of the missing mystery 4 year old girl who was
found in Farsala in central Greece. The girl was found during a crackdown on illegal
activities by Roma Gypsies after she was noticed due to her fair skin and blonde hair;the 4
year old had no resemblance to the couple she was with. Since she has been discovered DNA
test have shown that she is of no relation to the couple who had previously claimed to be her
parents. Stories of how she came to be with the couple include being found in a blanket,
handed to them by strangers and that the child had a foreign father.
This story is in the Public interest with a high priority, due to the fact that a missing child
has been found, child abduction cases are always high priority as the investigation requires
the public to hear about the abduction in order for them to have the best chance possible of
finding the missing person. This story was easily in the interest of the public as it involves a
child being found, this particular story involved something positive rather than the usual
negative things that people hear on the news. In cases like this the immediacy is very
important, because there is a search for the child’s parents the public need to know about the
story. This means that the story will be on the front page of the News Paper, the first story
shown on the evening news and the first story on the Radio this is because the story is
considered hard news. Radio news is one of the best things to use as they can easily send out
a new broadcast every half hour being an immediate story whereas, the newspapers will have
to wait until the following day to broadcast the news and the evening news will have to wait
until the evening. Newspapers could however, use the social media side to broadcast their
news immediately and it is also possible for the TV to interrupt the usual programmes in
order to let people know about the news story. This however, will only happen if the news
story is of high enough priority. Stories like these will have follow up angles, when reading
about a found/missing child, the MadelineMcCann story immediately springs to mind,
questioning if the same thing had happened to Madeline McCann or just simply that there is
still a chance of her being found. Other follow up angles could include, investigating whether
any of the other children had been bought in the same way that this child was and looking to
see if anything similar is happening in other countries and what actually happened to her birth
parents.
As the story is ofHuman Interest it has caught the attention of the public and people are very
interested in the childs story; how she came to be with the man and woman, how she was
found and so on. Another possible story could be a short programme on why her biological
parents gave her away and what caused them to do it. The News Room Policy would be
different for each of the different news rooms. Different news rooms would approach the
news in different ways for example; The Guardian could be considerate of the story, trying to

2. Callum Harrison
persuade the readers that the child’s biological parents must have had a good reason to give
away their child whereas The Sun,might have a different approach as they might care more
about the ratings so their story might focus more on the ethnicity or to case mass hysteria.
This particular story didn’t involve any Availability of Audio however, if the news story was
done by a radio broadcaster, the audio could include: interviewing people to get their
opinions on the story. If the reporter was live, they could try to find information from people
about what had happened and how they feel about the situation.
The next story I will be talking about is the invasion of privacy involving celebrities.
Newspapers have been hacking into celebrity’s phones for years, trying to find out
information for news stories about them. This information however, could be personal and
they might not want the media to know about it. Celebrities are frequently taking out
injunctions on the newspapers in the effort to stop them from revealing things about their
personal lives. The recent phone hacking scandal has claimed that up to 3,000 celebrities,
sports stars and politicians had had their personal communications monitored including Hugh
Grant, Steve Coogan and Sienna Miller. Sienna Miller received a £100,000 from News of the
World after they admitted to hacking her phone. A related storycould be the phone hacking of
murder victim Milly Dowler. Her phone was hacked by News of the world in the same way
that celebrities are being hacked and personal information is being broadcast.
Celebrities Phones are being hacked as it is in the Public Interest, by hacking the phones of
celebrities and finding out things about them, the news get an easy story and the public get to
read more things about the celebrities, the problem comes when the celebrities are not happy
with the news being reported. The story in the news about the phone hacking would be in the
public interest as they like the celebrities that are being mentioned. This particular story
doesn’t have any immediacy, it could possibly make the front page of the newspapers but if
the ‘phone hacking’ and ‘mystery 4 year old’ were at the same time, the 4 year old news story
would make it to the front page as it has more importance. Follow up angles on the phone
hacking could be investigation of who else has been hacked, such as the royal family or the
idea of the fact if celebrities are being hacked so often, what is to stop the general public
being hacked. The story is a human interest because it involves celebrities which are a topic
that is often read by the public. For example, Jordan built her career on her personal life; she
told the media the ins and outs of her life which as a result has given the public an interest in
her life, for Jordan to now say that the media are invading her personal life and she doesn’t
want her personal life to be broadcast anymore would be wrong as she herself has given the
public the interest in her life. The News room policy would again be dependent on who is
reporting the news. If there was availability of audio celebrities could be interviewed on
their own opinions on phone hacking, an interview from celebrity PR consultant Max
Clifford could be used. Jeremy King who is an editor of industry paper media week could be
interviewed to get a different opinion.
Although both stories are an interest to the public if they happened at the same time the
mystery four year old would always be considered as a higher priority and in result have
higher immediacy. This is because the missing four year old girl story is more important and
needs to be in the public eye as her family needs to be located.

3. Callum Harrison