Newsworthiness - What Elements Makes a Story News Worthy?

Newsworthiness - What Elements Makes a Story News Worthy?

There are certain elements that makes a news story news worthy, that means something that people would love to know about and it interests them and impacts their life. Stories that are news worthy enough are only reported mainly in the newspaper (there may be some exceptions and it depends on the people reading it too).



* Location is very important, something that is happening nearby will make a better news than something that is happening at other place, say another state or country. A person living in Delhi would love to know more about what's happening in Delhi than at Mumbai. It depends on the geographical area the audience is present at, that's why even national newspapers has separate sections for audience's city. It impacts the audience more and hence their reading interests.

* Something that the  audience is more familiar with will make a better news, like person, place or event than something it isn't familiar about. People are more interested reading about a celebrity giving speech at your college than a normal guest speaker. Quite obvious isn't it? Same applies to a famous place or some big event happening around.

* Timing plays a very important role, actually it's one of the most important things in news reporting. A news that is reported as early as possible will do way better than a news that is reported some time later because it grabs the audience's attention faster. Fresh is always better. People want to know about something as quickly as possible, one of the main reasons social media or the Internet does so well.

* People are more interested in knowing about something that is quite unusual, odd you say, bizarre, shocking, something they don't usually see or hear about. It makes a good news and this type of news gets viral fast as people are more likely to share it around (especially on the Internet/Social Media). Like a man biting a dog is better news than a dog biting a man.

* News where huge number of people are impacted does way better than a news where a very few number of people are impacted. Like Terrorist attacks, a very long traffic jam, hazardous air pollution, major stock changes or petrol/diesel price change, major road accidents, plane crash involving 100s of people etc. You get the idea.

* Impact it brings on people directly or indirectly, government introducing GST in India is a big news because it affects everyone living in the country on how they buy and sell goods. The bigger the impact, the more it will be news worthy. Elections can be another example, big conglomerate company going bankrupt or major stock loss people use products of, your national cricket team losing the World Cup etc. These news will make a bigger impact on people and hence are more news worthy. People will talk about it for weeks or even months!

* People are interested reading about scandals, famous personality deaths, religion, sports, business, culture, politics etc. but then it depends on the impact it makes on the society, the more it does, the more news worthy it will be.

 We make the news, newsworthy!

I hope you have got the idea of newsworthiness by now, thank you for reading!


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