News Values

After researching into the type of stories that are reported on in the news, I found the list of news values that Gatlung and Ruge proposed have to be adhered to if the story is to be news worthy:

• Frequency: Events that occur suddenly and fit well with the news organization's schedule are more likely to be reported than those that occur gradually or at inconvenient times of day or night. Long-term trends are not likely to receive much coverage.

• Negativity: Bad news is more newsworthy than good news.

• Unexpectedness: If an event is out of the ordinary it will have a greater effect than something that is an everyday occurrence.

• Unambiguity: Events whose implications are clear make for better copy than those that are open to more than one interpretation, or where any understanding of the implications depends on first understanding the complex background in which the events take place.

• Personalization: Events that can be portrayed as the actions of individuals will be more attractive than one in which there is no such "human interest."

• Meaningfulness: This relates to the sense of identification the audience has with the topic. "Cultural proximity" is a factor here -- stories concerned with people who speak the same language, look the same, and share the preoccupations as the audience receive more coverage than those concerned with people who speak different languages, look different and have different preoccupations.

• Reference to elite nations: Stories concerned with global powers receive more attention than those concerned with less influential nations.

• Reference to elite persons: Stories concerned with the rich, powerful, famous and infamous get more coverage.

• Conflict: Opposition of people or forces resulting in a dramatic effect. Stories with conflict are often quite newsworthy.

• Consonance: Stories that fit with the media's expectations receive more coverage than those that defy them (and for which they are thus unprepared). Note this appears to conflict with unexpectedness above. However, consonance really refers to themedia's readiness to report an item.

• Continuity: A story that is already in the news gathers a kind of inertia. This is partly because the media organizations are already in place to report the story, and partly because previous reportage may have made the story more accessible to the public (making it less ambiguous).

• Composition: Stories must compete with one another for space in the media. For instance, editors may seek to provide a balance of different types of coverage, so that if there is an excess of foreign news for instance, the least important foreign story may have to make way for an item concerned with the domestic news. In this way the prominence given to a story depends not only on its own news values but also on those of competing stories. (Galtung and Ruge, 1965)

• Competition: Commercial or professional competition between media may lead journalists to endorse the news value given to a story by a rival.

• Co-optation: A story that is only marginally newsworthy in its own right may be covered if it is related to a major running story.

• Prefabrication: A story that is marginal in news terms but written and available may be selected ahead of a much more newsworthy story that must be researched and written from the ground up.

• Predictability: An event is more likely to be covered if it has been pre-scheduled. (Bell, 1991)

• Time constraints: Traditional news media such as radio, television and daily newspapers have strict deadlines and a short production cycle, which selects for items that can be researched and covered quickly.

• Logistics: Although eased by the availability of global communications even from remote regions, the ability to deploy and control production and reporting staff, and functionality of technical resources can determine whether a story is covered. (Schlesinger, 1987)

If we cross-reference these with our main headline, the GCSE to English Baccalaureate Certificate changeover, we can see that this story is very relevant.

This story has emerged suddenly and caught most people by surprise so it fits 'frequency', while as it has emerged out of the blue it is also unexpected.

The effects that this change will have are very clear, that there will only be one exam at the end of course, so it is also unambiguous.

We will report on how this change will affect students/teachers/parents, so the story is personalized.

This story will directly affect all members of a family, and as our report is aimed at families, they will identify with the topic. The story also relates to this country, therefore, our report has meaning.

The fact that it was MP Michael Gove who stated this reform, the report has 'reference to elite persons'.

The story originated from the House of Commons, a place expected to reveal newsworthy items, so our report would have had consonance.

Overall, our report seems to fit a number of news values outlined by Gatlung and Ruge, and so, therefore, I think we have made a strong choice and chosen a story that is newsworthy.