News is important. If we didn’t have news, how would we know what is going on in our world around us? Especially with internet nowadays, there is so much “news” circulating. How are we supposed to know what makes something newsworthy?
Whenever I am trying to determine if something is newsworthy, I think about news values. There are eight big news values: Timeliness, Prominence, Proximity, Significance, Unusualness, Human Interest, Conflict, Newness. When looking at something that is potentially newsworthy, we should think about how or if it fits into any of these categories. If it doesn’t, it probably isn’t newsworthy.
There are obviously different types of news and news that is more important than others. There is a lot of controversy about whether pop culture is news. Compared to a mass shooting, one of the Kardashians’ divorce isn’t considered important. With that said, pop culture is still news. Pop culture appeals to the human interest news value and sometimes the unusualness and newness value as well. Although pop culture news can seem insignificant, people keep up with public figures, music, and fashion. We pay attention when our celebrity icon is in the tabloids for some crazy reason.
Determining if something is newsworthy isn’t as difficult as it seems when you have news values to refer to. Yes, some news is drastically more important and time-pressing than other news but, overall, news is news regardless of the headline.
