Television

Plenty of events occur every day and, at first sight, it may seem that it is really easy for journalists to find news to cover, but that is all wrong. There are many factors that determine their choice. Topicality, significancy and originality are the most important of them. I would like to tell a little bit more about each component that makes this or that event newsworthy.

The first one is topicality. Adverting to the mass media people are always interested in what is going on in the world at the moment, that is why news under coverage should be up-to-date or somehow connected with fresh information. Moreover, to stay relevant, news should regularly be updated.

The second component is sighificancy. It is a matter of common observation that different news can pursue various aims and exercise diverse functions. Some of them inform and educate, others entertain. However, all events presented by the mass media must be meaningful for the society.

Finally, the third and, probably, the essential element that guarantees the newsworthiness of the event is the originality. The quotation «When a Dog Bites a Man That is not News, But When a Man Bites a Dog That is News» by Charles Anderson Dana, American journalist, author, and government official, illustrates this fact very well. It is known from ancient times that people like spectacles and everything unusual and abnormal. That is a human nature, and it is absolutely uneventful that people are magnetized by some extraordinary information.

If we address to this case of the dog biting a man and a man biting a dog, we can see that, beyond all doubt, the second part of this phrase is more attractive, but we must not forget, that every case is unique. On the one hand, in modern society, when the confidence declines, hearing such news, people may just think that it is another fake, as a result, they are not interested but disappointed and even annoyed. On the other hand, this piece of news may contain some additional information and particularities that make it extremely interesting for people. For instance, when dog bites some celebrity or politician, or some ordinary person but in unusual circumstances, it definitely makes big news.

So, it is obvious that an event is usually considered more newsworthy if there is something unusual about it, but knowing this, journalists should remember about the code of ethics and always consult it when they choose an event to cover and when they decide how to cover it. Furthermore, I want to underline that even if originality is deemed to be the key criterion of the newsworthiness of this or that event, to my mind, the qualitative journalistic should be still based on these three clauses: topicality, significancy and originality.

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