Journalism TodayChapter 3: Deciding What Is NewsOverviewWhat is considered news in both professional and scholastic publications has changed over time. Journalism today encompasses not only “hard news”—events in the world—but also subjects from the full range of life. To decide what should be covered, journalists rely on their news judgment—the knowledge and instincts a reporter calls on to determine whether an event is newsworthy. Chapter 3 explores the elements to consider in assessing whether a story is newsworthy, such as timeliness, proximity, prominence, consequence, conflict, and human interest. The first step in developing news stories is to generate story ideas. One way to come up with ideas for stories is for the newspaper staff to hold a brainstorming session. This method can generate a range of ideas, solutions, and alternatives in a short time. Another method of generating news stories is polling. Obtaining legitimate information from polls, however, can be tricky. For a poll to be accurate, everyone who is surveyed must have an equal possibility of being included in the survey sample; in other words, the sample must be random and representative. The questions in the poll must also be carefully crafted and unambiguous. |  |
