COMM 1301 Exam 2 Review Dr Beth Olsen UH Chapter 81 Concept of news News is a report on change that survives the competition for reporting other change that is occurring What ends up being reported is the result of news judgments by reporters editors and producers who package their regular updates on what they believe their audiences need and want to know Newsworthiness is what determines what makes it into the news package helps to rank stories timeliness proximity local news comes first prominence impact conflict human interest 2 Bennett News Model and its weaknesses Based on penny press publisher who competed with Benjamin day by creating a new way of news reporting He wowed readers with compelling events and made the news get to the public faster Components compelling events deadline driven objectivity veiling the reporter Developed more sensationalistic news featured a lot of crime and potentially more interesting to readers introduced timeliness only time to tell facts not details created news beats reporters assigned certain types of news so they became specialists Drove consumers to the paper News coming to people more quickly because of technology Objectivity stays on topic without 1st person opinion Veiling the reporter don t really know who is writing the article anonymous in a way Weaknesses superficiality don t have time to get every detail deadline hastequick mass production can result in errors printing news ahead of time think politics dullness missed trends waiting on things to happen and not digging for stories questions unasked run out of time may be one sided on quotes and gathered info and manipulation circulation battle 3 Hutchins News Model Based on commission that henry loose paid for in 1940s time life mag commission studied news and concluded that news media needed to provide more detail in the story to add value to facts inject opinion changing the news dynamics in Radioinject emotion personality into news TV hear and see reporter but its format dictated shorter news story forced to use facts only 1min 30sec Internet wide open to providing opinion unlimited space no editors or degree necessary media literacy in changes have a growing sophistication can sort through facts from opinion facts and context and maybe even search for own context if it isn t provided in brief story and you want to know more about it 4 Journalists values Objectivity aside reporters still have personal values Ethnocentrism all about you journalists all about America view other countries through veil of ethnocentrism that U S is better Democracy and capitalism favor US form of government and capitalism may produce more stories of corruption in other countries governments Individualism tempered by moderation you hear a lot of news stories celebrating the individual and the all of the odds the individual faces to succeed Olympic individuals stories demonize people who fall in the middle not over achiever nor under achiever don t want extremists Social order a lot of news is framed in a way that it s supposed to show a return to social order clean up is underway electricity is going to be back on ultimate person to talk to restore social order is the president Watchdog function monitor performance of the government 5 Broadcast vs print news holes Print news hole amount of space you have for you news where is goes ads sold first then leaves room for news stories Broadcast news hole time you would sell for commercial breaks more consistent news hole No news holes on internet there can be popups 6 Circulation battle of Yellow Press period yellow journalism 205 6 2 competing newspapers in penny press era which then moved into yellow journalism there was a newspaper called the yellow kid and it was significant because it s the first time for news articles to be in color one newspaper hired the cartoon artist from the other and it caused emotions to rise Stories became more and more elaborate Then one predicted the Spanish war but nothing had happed yet and said you provide the pics and ill provide the story meaning he would build it up and make people take sides manipulation Yellow journalism sensationalized news accounts 7 Consensible news herd journalism News organization second guessing competition in deciding coverage Journalism is a competitive business and the drive to outdo other news organizations keeps news publications and newscasts fresh with new material Competition has an unglamorous side Journalists constantly monitor each other to identify events that they missed and need to catch up on to be competitive It is catch up aspect of the news business contributes to similarities in coverage which scholar Leon Sigal calls the consensible nature of news It also is called pack and herd journalism 8 Ongoing traditions from the Penny Press era Newspapers that were affordable for everyone News stories appeal to mass audiences 9 Benjamin Day and penny press Created the penny press one cent newspaper switched revenue model from subscribers to advertisers and it costs less so more people read it 10 Objectivity and its origins Objectivity A concept in journalism that news should be gathered and told valuefree detached neutral no opinion just facts A detached tone became a norm with the early Associated Press as a model Several cost conscious New York newspapers created the AP in 1848 as a joint venture to cover distant news and split the costs Opinion was taken out of AP so that news stories could be used nationwide neutral not offend 11 Gatekeepers People who decide what makes news 12 News as non fiction Supposed to be true some reporters have been known to fabricate sources and stories trying to gain readers Or more commonly plagiarize an article and call it their own 13 Aggregation sites Gathers stories from around the internet wide variety local and international news also known as a portal gets all sorts of news stories all in one place 14 Muckraking Fanciful term for digging up dirt but that usually is used in a laudatory way for investigative journalism aimed at public policy reform 15 News alerts Email links to news from search engines on subjects that users request with key search terms 16 Soft news Can be celebrity news usually interesting eye candy junk food of news casts the wants not needs not critical than day to day life 17 Watchdog function Trustee of the public press media serve as a watchdog seek truth stand accountable The news media role to monitor the performance of