What makes it news? (Recap of Class 1/28)

Definitions of news change across time and countries and with new technology.

In many parts of the world the press only writes about the doings of the national government -- the president and congress mostly. In the U.S. for a long time news was simply EVENTS, things, usually campaigns, war and disaster, that happened which reporters covered as witnesses or stenographers reporting back to citizens who couldn't see the events themselves.

It was revolutionary a century ago, at a time when masses of people began reading the news in the US, when reporters began writing about everyday rather than extraordinary events. Housing, schools, profiles of interesting people began appearing them for the first time. Investigations of predatory businesses and slum housing were done by journalists, not government officials.

Today, for you, I'd say that news is anything you find interesting...that you can also make interesting to other people.

Some elements that help to make topics interesting and compelling to write about are these:

*TIMELINESS. Stories about anything relating to the Super Bowl, including weather, injuries to team players, mood of the coaches is big news now because the game is coming up this weekend. Next month, these stories will be harder to interest readers in.

*PROXIMITY. In general, readers and viewers want to know about their neighbors and colleagues. Think of it in terms of gossip: you are interested if your former boss gets a divorce or the man who sits at the desk next to you; you are not so interested in the number of divorces issued by the state of New Mexico last year. The trick is that proximity is wider now than it ever has been. For example, UAlbany students are likely to read about other UAlbany students, about other US college students, other students globally, news from their hometowns, news from foreign countries they'd done foreign study programs in, topics of interest to people in their 20s including technology, sports and relationships.

See, anything that interests you that you can get others interested in. Show readers how they too are connected to the story you are telling them.

*PROMINENCE. In news, all people are not equal. Anything at all the U.S. President does can be turned into a story, including minor operations. Same for Brittney Spears, for that matter. Celebrity news has gotten out of hand because of the public fascination with the prominent. It's more fun to read about Lindsay Lohan than the sub-prime lending crisis. But remember this: Ordinary people also can be made extraordinary when reporters examine their lives. Walt Harrington, a newspaper writer turned professor, calls this "Intimate Journalism" or "reporting everyday life." Others call it simply....

*HUMAN INTEREST. A grandfather saves his 11-year-old granddaughter from an attacking rottweiler...a young man stops a woman with a gun from shooting a politician speaking to a crowd of people. Two women who are identical twins and marrying a set of identical twin husbands and they all live next door to each other in identical houses furnished identically. Strange things happen to anyone and they become newsworthy. Or, people living routine lives, coping with illness, loss, success, boring jobs...that can make for news stories too.

*CONFLICT. Like prominence, this is another news factor that the media may be overplaying. Of course, the war in Iraq and civil war in Kenya are news. But journalists taking an easy way out in trying to make their reports interesting turn everything into a conflict. Ever hear about two teams battling to win a championship? Or a sick person waging a courage battle against a fatal disease?

*CONSEQUENCES. Reporters call these Dull But Important stories. Journalists sometimes make readers and viewers do homework. They feel justified because they know the readers' pocketbook or their future or their children are affected by events that are hard to follow and understand and, frankly, boring. You all listened to the State of the Union, so you know what I mean. The job of a journalist is to pay attention to all the boring activities of government and business that citizens do not have time to pay attention to. And then to tell them about what happened, to explain it in simple terms and to relate this to their lives. Think of the journalist as a translator. You don't write about passage of a city budget. You tell homeowners how much more in property taxes they have to pay next year and what new services they may get as a result. You don't give UAlbany students a play-by-play of dry State Legislative hearings. You sum them all up in a story about whether lawmakers are gong to give themselves a raise -- while also hiking your tuition.

*HOBBIES and INTEREST. Sports is news. Technology reports are news. Stock market reports are news. To repeat: anything that is of interest to you that you can make interesting to others. Under this category come all those dog and pets stories in the media. (Some of us would rather read about Angelina.)

*ODDITY OR "HEY, MABEL, TAKE A LOOK AT THIS!!" Into this category go all the quirky, weird and strange predicaments people can find themselves in, the kind of thing that readers and viewers will talk about. "Hey, did you see that story about..." My favorite recent example of this kind of story was the guy in Illinois who got his finger caught in a public telephone. He was trying, obviously, to dig out money from the change-return and then couldn't extract himself. Police had to take him and the phone to a hospital. Hey Mabel!