National News Story Analysis 2

This disaster story focuses on the floods in the UK.

National News Story 2 - Disaster/Flooding

This story contains the following news values:

FAMILIARITY - This disaster happened in the UK, in a town called Malmesbury in Wiltshire.
AMPLITUDE - This event involved a large number of people in the town.
FREQUENCY - Flooding is happening more and more often.
IMPACT - This has a profound effect on the lives of both the victims of flooding and the general public, due to the fact that insurance prices will go up.
PREDICTABILITY - In recent years these stories about flooding across the UK, are becoming more frequent.
CONTINUITY - The report discusses the clean-up operation after a flooding earlier in the weekend, so the story has already been defined as news; the bad weather has been affecting this area for some time.
PERSONALISATION - This story is a human interest story because this type of natural disaster could happen anywhere in the country, and people will be frightened that they could lose their homes and livelihoods.
NEGATIVITY - This is bad news because the consequences of the flood were devastating for the victims.

National News Story Analysis 1

This crime story centres on the sentencing of a man accused of murdering a pensioner. 

National News Story 1 - Murder of a Pensioner

This story contains the following news values:

FAMILIARITY - The murder took place in a town in the UK (Rochdale).
SURPRISE - It is a surprise that crimes against someone his age would take place.
CONTINUITY - The story was established as news on the 14th October when the man was murdered, this part of the story focuses on the killer being charged. Because this is not breaking news, the story would probably be further down the news agenda.
PERSONALISATION - This is a human interest story because of the age of the man and his vulnerability (and also because everybody has elderly relatives).
NEGATIVITY - This is bad news involving the unnecessary death of an elderly man.
SCANDAL - The story is likely to provoke moral outrage because it involves the death of a fragile elderly gentleman.

Comparing the Presentation of National and Local News

The radio extract that i'm going to produce will be from a local or community radio station, so I think it's important that I have a look at both national and local news stories to see if there is any difference in terms of the types of stories and the news values that determine whether the news story is newsworthy.

I think I will find that certain news values apply more to national news stories (such as amplitude and elite people), while others are more relevant to local news (such as familiarity and personalisation).

News Stories and News Values

I will be looking at a number of existing local and national news stories over the coming weeks, listening online and also looking at the ways news is presented in the newspapers, on TV and on online news sites. The first thing I will look for is the ways the stories use the "5 W'S" - a formula used by journalists to capture the "full story". The "5 W's" are often found near the beginning of the story, usually taking up the first couple of paragraphs. The "5 W's" are:

WHO - is it about?
WHAT - happened?
WHEN - did it take place?
WHERE - did it take place?
WHY - did it happen?
HOW - did it happen?

You can see the "5 W's" in the story below about the sentencing of parents who had been accused of killing their young child. If you click on the link you can read the full story.

News Story Containing the 5 Ws

When analysing the stories I am going to make a note of the news values that each story contains. News values are the factors that help explain how editors and journalists decide that certain news stories are newsworthy.

The news values that I will take into consideration are:

IMMEDIACY - is the story "breaking"?

FAMILIARITY - is it culturally/geographically close to the audience?

AMPLITUDE - is it a big event, involving large numbers of people?

FREQUENCY - does the event happen often?

IMPACT - does the story have a profound effect on the audience's lives?

PREDICTABILITY - was it expected?

SURPRISE - is it unusual/unexpected?

CONTINUITY - has the story already been defined as news?

CONFLICT - does the story contain disagreements, arguments or battles?

ELITE PEOPLE - does the story concern well known people such as celebrities or MPs?

PERSONALISATION - is it a human interest story?

NEGATIVITY - is it bad news?

SCANDAL - will it provoke more outrage?

BALANCE - has the story been selected to balance other, more negative, news?