News Literacy, Spring 2021: Week 3 Powerpoint
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The document discusses factors that determine what stories are considered newsworthy. It outlines that there are three main factors: 1) Universal News Drivers like importance, conflict, proximity etc. that make certain elements inherently newsworthy. 2) Editorial judgement by news editors in determining what is interesting and important. 3) The audience and their preferences which news outlets must consider as businesses seeking viewers. Powerful images can also increase a story's prominence. Newsworthiness is a combination of these objective drivers and subjective forces.
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News Literacy, Spring 2021: Week 3 Powerpoint
- 1. What is newsworthy and who decides?
- 3. A story that can take audience away from competing news organizations An “exclusive” scoop
- 4. What an editor says is newsworthy
- 5. Things powerful people don’t want you to know
- 7. Timely information of some public interest that is shared and subject to a journalistic process of verification, and for which an independent individual or organization is directly accountable. DEFINITION OF NEWS
- 8. 3 factors determine what is newsworthy 1. Universal News Drivers 2. Editorial judgment 3. The audience
- 9. (story’s timing makes it more newsworthy) The 10 Universal News Drivers
- 17. Magnitude (a story driven by numbers) UNIVERSAL NEWS DRIVERS
- 20. More drivers mean a bigger story
- 21. Powerful images give stories more prominence
- 24. Powerful images give stories more prominence
- 25. The power of images
- 26. FACTOR 2: Editorial judgment
- 35. What it “needs” vs. What it wants FACTOR 3: Audience
- 36. The importance of the customer in making decisions
- 37. Presentation and design target specific audiences
- 38. Presentation and design target specific audiences
- 39. Competition
- 40. Power shifts from editor to consumer
- 43. It’s up to you. The burden is on the news consumer to understand the factors that drive news coverage and actively pursue the information you need to make
- 44. 1. 10 Universal News Drivers offer insight into why certain stories rise to the top of the news. The more news drivers a story has going for it, the more prominence it will receive. 2. The judgment of editors and, increasingly, the preferences of the audience also play a role in determining what’s deemed newsworthy. 3. Great images and compelling video also drive story play. 4. News outlets are also businesses, and because attracting and growing audiences are crucial, there's an inherent tension between providing news that people need and news they find interesting.
Editor's Notes
- All of that is to say that there’s disagreement over what’s newsworthy and who decides. What may seem straightforward, based on common sense, is not. There are a variety of news outlets that serve a variety of audiences. Sometimes there are big stories that most outlets cover: elections, impeachment, massive natural disasters. On most days, however, news outlets differ markedly in their coverage. We’ll talk about that in this lesson.
- So how do we know what’s newsworthy? Well, it depends in part on how one goes about defining news. Is it what’s on society’s mind? Increasingly we find this out by what’s trending online, or on facebook and twitter.
- Any time a reporter finds out something before everyone else, that’s a “scoop” …and that newness in and of itself is sometimes enough to make information newsworthy, whether the scoop is information that alerts, diverts or connects us. That word, “EXCLUSIVE” gets slapped on a story when the news organization thinks they have a story no one else has. It may be over-used, but one definition of news is information that reports raise the value of any ‘scoop’ https://www.apnews.com/828aefab64d4411bac257a07c1af0ecb
- For better or worse, News is sometimes defined by the person in charge of the newsroom. With all those stories to choose from every day, someone has to choose what gets priority and what does not. (Students will get a chance in the hot seat during recitation.)
- This definition is related to reporters’ watchdog role: it’s the responsibility of the press to keep watch on the government and others in power, exposing corruption and wrongdoing. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/12/05/us/harvey-weinstein-complicity.html?login=email
- Then there are the “man bites dog” stories. They’re unusual and worthy of attention because of their unusualness. When a dog bites a man, it’s not news. That happens all the time. But when a man bites a dog, the news media pounce to capture a rare moment.
- For the purposes of this course, here’s our definition of news: “Timely information of some public interest that is shared and has been subjected to a journalistic process of verification, and for which an independent individual or organization is directly accountable.” Today we’re going to focus on the first part of this definition: what makes a story of “some public interest”? (Next week we’ll discuss the rest of the definition, focusing on the principles that set journalism apart: verification, independence, and accountability.) This is a useful definition that clarifies for us what distinguishes journalism from other kinds of information. But we need to dig deeper if we want to understand what goes into defining newsworthiness. We will focus on the first part of the definition today, and the part on VIA next week. So today we’ll discuss how journalists determine what makes a story of public interest, which stories to share, which stories to weigh more prominently than others.
- Let’s organize our thoughts about what becomes news as follows: Three factors seem to determine what becomes news and what does not. Universal news drivers Editorial judgment Audience Judgment This is the blueprint for the rest of the lecture. We’ll examine each of these factors so you can analyze how a piece of information becomes news.
- ANIMATION: EACK CLICK BRINGS UP THE NEXT DRIVER. FINAL CLICK BRINGS UP DNA SLIDE FROM LECTURE 2 For the purposes of this course, here is how we define each driver. You can assume that surrounding all of these is the human demand for information about what is happening NOW. That’s why it’s called “NEWs.” If a piece of information fits a driver and it is brand new information, that can propel it into newsworthiness or make it go viral. (Read definitions) The drivers are more specific expressions of those DNA-level needs we have for information that Alerts, Diverts and Connects us. Prominence Importance Human interest Conflict Change Unusualness Proximity Timeliness Magnitude Relevance
- Let’s take a look at sample stories and determine which driver or drivers are appropriate. (Note: Many stories have more than one. Just because we’re emphasizing one driver for each story doesn’t mean we’re dismissing other relevant drivers.) This is a story with IMPORTANCE. It’s related to importance issues: public health, climate change, politics and environmental policy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyyGSXdr5GA From the NY Times: Sao Paulo, the Western Hemisphere’s biggest city, was covered in a blanket of smoke this week that turned day to night. The viral campaign #PrayfortheAmazon is washing across social media. And one of the government’s leading research agencies is saying that rates of deforestation in the Amazon are skyrocketing — along with the rate of forest fires. But Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, the man most able to stanch the unfolding crisis in the Amazon, isn’t just ignoring the problem. He’s suggesting it’s being staged to make him look bad. Asked this week about the surging fires in the world’s most precious forest — the area scorched has more than doubled in the past two years — he accused nongovernment organizations of setting them, to “call attention” against his government. Destruction and human contact inside the forest is making what was once thought to be all but impossible — wildfires in a rainforest — possible. The area in Brazil’s Amazon regions razed by fire has more than doubled in two years, from 3,168 square miles during the first seven months of 2017 to 7,192 square miles during the same period this year, the space institute reported. The Amazon forest serves as the lungs of the planet, taking in carbon dioxide, storing it in soils and producing oxygen. Scientists agree that it is one of the world’s great defenses against climate change. In Brazil, the Amazon has suffered 74,155 fires since January, the space research institute reported. That’s up 85 percent from last year and significantly higher than the 67,790 blazes at this point in 2016, when there were severe drought conditions in the region associated with a strong El Niño event. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/the-amazon-is-burning-bolsonaro-says-his-critics-are-setting-the-fires-to-make-him-look-bad/2019/08/21/722ca092-c424-11e9-8bf7-cde2d9e09055_story.html
- Good Morning America reported on the performance of this young woman, Lavender Darcangelo, who performed at an LGBTQ Pride event. Why cover this? Because it CONNECTS us (remember the power of information). It’s a story with human interest: it reminds us of our shared humanity. Human interest stories tend to be emotional, tugging at our heart strings. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwk2d-Ozzk8
- Many people marry every day, but not every wedding receives widespread news coverage. Weddings draw attention when they involve celebrities and other prominent people. BuzzFeed News even labeled this as part of their “celebrity” coverage. This story has prominence—it involves a famous person. https://www.buzzfeed.com/crystalro/lauren-hashian-the-rock-facts
- And the ongoing protests in Hong Kong? Clearly conflict, over a piece of legislation but more than that: the independence of Hong Kong, and the safety and security of the people who live there. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/01/world/asia/hong-kong-protest-photos.html
- What driver is appropriate here? This is a big change. https://www.channel4.com/news/africa-set-to-be-declared-polio-free-after-massive-effort-in-Nigeria Now, in some good news, Africa looks set to be declared free of polio – after the World Health Organisation announced the continent hasn’t seen a wild case for three years. The WHO said progress had been made due to the unprecedented scale of effort in Nigeria, involving thousands of volunteers – often putting themselves in harm’s way.
- Here’s a story about the restoration of mission control to the specifications of 50 years ago. Why newsworthy? Because this year marks the 50th anniversary of the Apollo moon landing. This is a timely story. https://techcrunch.com/2019/06/28/nasa-restores-apollo-mission-control-to-its-1969-moon-landing-condition/
- What makes this story newsworthy? Scientists tracked an arctic fox that journeyed more than 2,100 miles from Norway to Canada, leaving the researchers speechless at the animal’s feat of endurance. The vast distance traveled makes this a story with magnitude. Please note that we don’t mean magnitude as a synonym for importance. Rather, stories with magnitude have a significant number in them that make them of public interest. https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-48824181 https://www.cbsnews.com/news/scientists-speechless-after-arctic-fox-makes-76-day-trek-from-norway-to-canada/ https://www.npr.org/2019/07/02/737993673/arctic-fox-sets-record-in-walking-from-norway-to-canada
- A story like this matters to students, especially those who collect student loans. This story alerts them to be cautious of debt relief scams. https://www.wsj.com/articles/soaring-student-debt-opens-door-to-relief-scams-11566826805
- If something happens for the first time—such as an astronaut allegedly committing a crime in space—it is, by definition, unusual. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/23/us/nasa-astronaut-anne-mcclain.html https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6JhfOvZg7M Summer Worden, a former Air Force intelligence officer living in Kansas, has been in the midst of a bitter separation and parenting dispute for much of the past year. So she was surprised when she noticed that her estranged spouse still seemed to know things about her spending. Had she bought a car? How could she afford that? Ms. Worden put her intelligence background to work, asking her bank about the locations of computers that had recently accessed her bank account using her login credentials. The bank got back to her with an answer: One was a computer network registered to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Ms. Worden’s spouse, Anne McClain, was a decorated NASA astronaut on a six-month mission aboard the International Space Station. She was about to be part of NASA’s first all-female spacewalk. But the couple’s domestic troubles on Earth, it seemed, had extended into outer space. Ms. McClain acknowledged that she had accessed the bank account from space, insisting through a lawyer that she was merely shepherding the couple’s still-intertwined finances. Ms. Worden felt differently. She filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission and her family lodged one with NASA’s Office of Inspector General, accusing Ms. McClain of identity theft and improper access to Ms. Worden’s private financial records. Investigators from the inspector general’s office have since contacted Ms. Worden and Ms. McClain, trying to get to the bottom of what may be the first allegation of criminal wrongdoing in space.
- The story of the fires destroying the Amazon rainforest features more than “importance” as a news driver. Which other ones work here? Relevance? Yes, it’s part of a larger problem that affects people worldwide. Magnitude? Yes, the fires are occurring on a massive scale. Prominent people are involved: Brazil’s President Bolsinaro, world leaders at the G-7 summit are involved to some extent. Human interest? Stories about firefighters and local natives have the potential to tug at our heartstrings. Conflict? It’s humanity versus nature. Also, there’s a debate about how to address the problem. President Bolsinaro rejected $20 million pledged by the G-7 countries to help fight the fires. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/brazil-rejects-g-7-amazon-aid-citing-its-lack-of-involvementin-decision-to-grant-it/2019/08/27/4d8b0eb8-c8b6-11e9-9615-8f1a32962e04_story.html
- Images and video can also bring more attention to a story. They dramatize the story, and grab consumers’ attention. They highlight certain news drivers. Case in point: the protests in Hong Kong again. Here we have a macro view, giving us a sense of the magnitude of the protests. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/01/world/asia/hong-kong-protest-photos.html
- Here’s a closer view of the dramatic conflict, as law enforcement confronts protesters and sprays them with pepper spreay. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/01/world/asia/hong-kong-protest-photos.html
- Another image, another angle: injured protesters receiving medical assistance. The bird’s-eye view, though dramatic, can’t give us this more human-centered view. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/01/world/asia/hong-kong-protest-photos.html
- Why include a dummy in a car shot in space? For the visual. https://www.space.com/39777-track-elon-musk-tesla-starman-website.html
- ANIMATION: CLICK FADES OUT PHOTO, BRINGS IN EDITORIAL JUDGEMENT ELEMENTS Now for Factor Number Two: Editorial Judgment While the innate characteristics of a piece of information (prominent people…peculiar doings...and so forth) determines if it is newsworthy, there are other forces at work. How does a news organization decide which information is news and which is not? An Editor or Producer makes those judgments, weighing these factors: CLICK In the past, American journalists wrapped themselves in the flag and first amendment and emphasized Importance, Relevance, Conflict and Change when choosing top stories. As marketing data improved, and competitors stole customers, newsroom leaders began paying attention to what interests the audience and who is the audience. Today, a big part of the job of leading a news organization is finding the balance between what the audience wants, vs. what it may need. To be honest, it’s somewhere between gut and science. And those judgments of Want vs. Need are also reflected in how a story is handled once it is selected. That’s what we call Presentation… How a story is displayed, illustrated and described…in relation to the other stories that are selected by that news outlet. Presentation is best described in terms of Tone and Weight. Tone: humorous, serious, conversational, scholarly indicates whether editors think the story alerts, diverts or connects. Weight: The time and space devoted to a story indicates how important and/or interesting editors think it is. For starters, Let’s work as a class on giving stories the right attention based on importance versus interest.
- This feat of arm strength came a few months after Patterson turned heads on social media with another showcase of his pitching repertoire ... while his left arm was in a cast. This is all, uh, rather impressive. 94+ mph? On a fan speed pitch radar booth? That's what we all think we can do, only to feel the crushing disappointment when the gun flashes up a number we'd rather not tell our friends about. But this story gets better than that. Here's 23-year-old Nathan Patterson, he of the golden arm seen above, signing a contract with the A's. Yes, really. https://www.mlb.com/cut4/a-s-sign-pitcher-who-dazzled-at-in-stadium-radar-booth
- NEWARK — Weeks into an escalating public health crisis caused by elevated levels of lead in the water, officials announced on Monday a new $120 million plan to expedite the replacement of ancient service pipes in this city. The new financing will allow the city to replace the 18,000 buried lead service lines in the next 24 to 30 months, according to Mayor Ras Baraka, a significant change from what city officials had estimated would take 10 years to complete. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/26/nyregion/newark-lead-water-pipes.html
- The Cherokee Nation principal chief had an important announcement to make last week. Standing on a stage in the Cherokee capital, Chuck Hoskin Jr. told his people, and the United States, that he intended to nominate a Cherokee delegate to Congress. His decision would come as a surprise to some. But to the Cherokee, the announcement was nearly 200 years in the making. Nagle’s ancestors signed the Treaty of New Echota on behalf of the Cherokee in 1835. The group would come to be known as the “Treaty Party,” Reed said, and resentment within the Cherokee still lingers, said Nagle, who recently heard people refer to the treaty as one that “traitors signed.” In early 1836, thousands of Cherokee citizens, led by Principal Chief Ross, delivered a petition to Congress asking it to void the treaty, according to Smithsonian magazine. But the Senate ratified the Treaty of New Echota, and Jackson signed it into law. The treaty provided for land in Oklahoma, where the Cherokee Nation still resides, and $5 million. But there was something else in that agreement that, until last week, the Cherokee had not taken advantage of: a provision that allows for a Cherokee delegate in the House. Ezra Rosser, a law professor at American University, said the language of the provision is complicated: that the Cherokee “shall be entitled to a delegate in the House of Representatives of the United States whenever Congress shall make provision for the same.” Rosser says it could be read in two ways: Congress could say it didn’t really promise anything; or it could say the delegate can be admitted once there are administrative provisions made. But Rosser has argued that the clause “was not a paternalistic pat on the head” or a “pretend promise,” he told The Washington Post. “It was real promise with this administrative function set aside for Congress.” This week, the Cherokee Nation Council is expected decide whether to begin the process of sending a delegate to Congress. https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2019/08/26/years-ago-cherokee-nation-was-offered-seat-congress-it-just-announced-its-chosen-delegate/
- https://people.com/music/taylor-swift-forbes-highest-paid-woman-music/
- A judge Monday found Johnson & Johnson responsible for fueling Oklahoma’s opioid crisis, ordering the health care company to pay $572.1 million to redress the devastating consequences suffered by the state and its residents. Cleveland County District Judge Thad Balkman’s landmark decision is the first to hold a drugmaker culpable for the fallout of years of liberal opioid dispensing that began in the late 199os, sparking a nationwide epidemic of overdose deaths and addiction. More than 400,000 people have died of overdoses from painkillers, heroin and illegal fentanyl since 1999. Balkman, who read part of his decision aloud in his courtroom Monday afternoon, said “the opioid crisis has ravaged the state of Oklahoma and must be abated immediately.” With more than 40 states lined up to pursue similar claims against the pharmaceutical industry, the ruling in the first state case to go to trial could influence both side’s strategies in the months and years to come. Its impact on an enormous federal lawsuit brought by nearly 2,000 cities, counties, Native American tribes and others, which is scheduled to begin in October, is less certain. Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter (R) sued three major drug companies in 2017, accusing them of creating “a public nuisance” by showering the state with opioids, while downplaying the drugs’ addictive potential and persuading physicians to use them even for minor aches and pains. Before the late 1990s, physicians reserved the powerful drugs primarily for cancer and post-surgical pain and end-of-life care. More than 6,000 Oklahomans have died of painkiller overdoses since 2000, the state charged in court papers, as the number of opioid prescriptions dispensed by pharmacies reached 479 every hour in 2017. Oklahoma settled with Purdue Pharma, manufacturer of OxyContin, in March, accepting $270 million from the company and its owners, the Sackler family. Most of that will go to a treatment and research center at Oklahoma State University, although the federal government is seeking a portion of the money. In May, two days before the trial began, the state settled with Teva Pharmaceuticals, an Israeli-based manufacturer of generic drugs, for $85 million. That left Johnson & Johnson, which has denied any wrongdoing and chose to fight the accusations in what became a seven-week trial before Balkman. There was no jury. https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/johnson-and-johnson-is-responsible-for-fueling-oklahomas-opioid-crisis-judge-rules-in-landmark-case/2019/08/26/ed7bc6dc-c7fe-11e9-a4f3-c081a126de70_story.html
- Indonesian President Joko Widodo says his country will create a new capital city on the island of Borneo, revealing new details about his plan to move the central government out of Jakarta. The capital's current location faces a number of problems, including the fact that it's sinking. Widodo's announcement Monday comes months after he said he wanted to move the capital, seeking a place that can offer a break from Jakarta's environmental challenges as well as its relentlessly gridlocked traffic. While rising seawater levels from climate change are a widespread concern for island and coastal areas worldwide, experts say Jakarta has played a central role in its own predicament. https://www.npr.org/2019/08/26/754291131/indonesia-plans-to-move-capital-to-borneo-from-jakarta
- Man wearing a TV on his head has been leaving TVs on people’s porches. Weird! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUQlTguPAgc
- https://www.thedailybeast.com/tennessee-man-sues-popeyes-over-fried-chicken-sandwich-shortage?via=twitter_page
- That weighing process – Important versus Interesting – is all about trying to serve an audience…should a news organization only give the people what they want – photos of Miley Cyrus Twerking, or should it tell them they bloody well need some cod liver oil, so siddown, shaddap and read this 4,000-word article about missile throw weights in the former Balkan Republics.
- Why are these two magazine covers so different? Different news outlets serve different audiences. The Economist, a sober-minded UK publication that delves into serious issues, covers Trump and his associates in one way. People, which wants you to pick up a copy while you’re checking out at the grocery store, covers different angles for a different audience. So defining one’s audience, one’s brand if you will, gives an outlet its identify.
- In paper form, the New York Times is a broadsheet. Its website design seeks to emphasize the substance of its news coverage and its opinion. A quick scan of the homepage reveals the variety of the Times’ coverage. Side note: in a controversial move, the recently redesigned homepage does not feature bylines of the reporters, but does call attention to the names of columnists.
- BuzzFeed News twitter feed, unlike that of BuzzFeed.com, concentrates on more serious stories, like tech company reps testifying before Congress. Of course, these are just a few in a long and constantly refreshing stream of news from this account. Note how the feed emphasizes images and auto-starting videos that dominate the page and attract your eye.
- So, while Editorial Judgment of what’s important versus what’s interesting (We call that the Mission versus the Market) plays a major role in determining What is News, there’s another big factor. You can’t run a good news organization unless you run a profitable news organization. So competition and profit also determine what gets covered…and what gets ignored. Let’s start with the simplest form of Competition. A few cities still have pairs of newspapers slugging it out to gain the most readers and almost every town in America has three local television stations.
- Let’s take a look at how audience choices may drive news judgment. While the editors exercise their judgment each day to select some mix of interesting and important stories, reader data on lists like this from the New York Times website re-stacks the editors choices into a virtual newspaper edited by the audience. Think about how the news reaches you every day. Do you actively seek it out? Or do you only click on stories that grab your attention in your social media feed? News outlets, more than ever, track consumers’ activities, keeping tabs on the most tweeted, shared, searched for, read stories. Your activities on a news site could shape future coverage.
- Video on algorithms will play. http://www.niemanlab.org/2016/08/algorithms-are-now-controlling-facebooks-trending-topics-what-does-that-mean-for-news/ According to a Pew Research Center study f, more than 40 percent of American adults get their news from Facebook. Recently, Facebook fired all of its employees responsible for sorting what goes into users’ newsfeeds. Now the process is controlled by an algorithm. Once the algorithm took over, observers notices that fake stories began trending, like a made-up report on Megyn Kelly being fired by Fox News. Frivolous news also trended, like a silly piece about the long-gone sitcom “The ‘70s Show.” Facebook — and its algorithm — are extremely powerful and exert huge amounts of control over what type of news coverage a significant number of its users see. So what does it mean when it’s promoting blatantly false news and clickbait aggregation? How can legitimate news outlets operate in this environment when they are becoming increasingly reliant on Facebook? Do users even care that they’re being fed stories from sites of ill repute? In a story in this week’s New York Times Magazine, David Carr fellow John Herrman wrote that hyper-political pages have taken over Facebook, and thus much of the conversation around the U.S. election, without much thought about issues such as sourcing or accuracy.
- The results you get from a Google or Yahoo or Bing search are determined by mathematical formulas known as algorithms. Search software seeks out the words in web pages to see how closely they match what you’re looking for. For years, savvy web providers have gamed this through something called Search Engine Optimization and the search engines keep responding with alterations. We’ll talk about this more later in the course, but here’s the latest gambit in this ongoing chess game. Because Google’s algorithm also pays attention to what YOU the audience pay attention to. So is it a feedback loop, or a greater way to find reliable information? Also note that you may personalize the news yourself: stress health news over technology, sports over world news, etc.