News Values in Journalism

News and News Values in Mainstream Journalism

News Values in Journalism

Pick up half a dozen newspapers of different publishing houses on a single day, and scan through the news items on the front pages of the newspapers. What strikes you at once is that most of the same items (‘news stories’) appear in each paper, often with a similar headline and in a similar position on the front page. Stories appearing on the top half of the from page are considered to be more important that those appearing below the fold. Prominence and significance of stories is suggested by type-size of headlines, placement, and columns centimeters of space; sometimes news items are ‘boxed’ to suggest their greater significance.

Clearly, there is  a ‘hierarchy’ in the selection of news. Political stories receive more prominent coverage than say stories of heroism; disaster and crime stories get greater attention than social or civic problems. The focus, it becomes clear, is on ‘events’ rather than issues and processes; on eminent and elite people rather than the poor and the marginalized; on the exotic Novel rather than the ordinary, the everyday and the usual. Evidently, certain’ values’ are at work in the way some happenings, some people, some nations and some cities, are considered news worthy  and others not so. Numbers happenings are not reported;  strict selection process sift out what is not newsworthy, and chooses to publish. From whose perspective and in terms of which value-system is this selection being made?

It appears that journalists in all newspapers think alike and work according to the same set of values. It is true that they use same sources (the news agencies) for the majority of their news stories ,but even whers newspapers have their own special correspondents, say as in New Delhi or the state capital. one finds that exactly the same stories come to be selected for reporting. It appears that reporters hum in packs; they have a similar sense of what makes for news. An earthquake takes place in Latur, and The world’s Press is thers the next day in hordes; Anna Hazare of Ralegaon Siddhi threatens a fast unto death, and Maharashtra’s reporters queue up outside his temple-residence. The Prime Minister comes to town, even on a personal visit, and the Press is busy sniffing around.

This approach to journalism is sometimes labeled ‘Pack Journalism’. Further, how is it that journalists the world over swear by the ‘inverted pyramid structure’ when writing up the news? Such a structure came  into existence with the telegraph; the electronic media and the internet have a potential for experimenting with other formats, but journalists annot shed their for experimenting with other formats, but journalists cannot shed their old habits of thought and their old routines of working to deadlines . With round the clock news on news channels (such as CNN,BBC World, Star News and ZEE, India TV ) and on the Internet. The traditional froms of journalism and traditional routines of Joutines of journalists have taken a thorough beating.

Magazines and their genres

The 1980s saw a boom in the publication of magazines in India, not only in English but in the major Indian Languages as well. Indeed nearly four out of every five Indian periodicals are in the Indian languages, and they have a circulation which is nearly three fourths of the total circulation. Hindi has largest circulation (7.9 lakhs) with over 3,000 periodicals followed by English which has 2,670 periodicals with a circulation of over six million. Periodicals in Taml, Malayalam, Gujarati, Bengali, Marathi, Urdu and Telugu too enjoy a fairly good circulation.

The magazine boom was perhaps set off by the launch of India Today in the mid-serventies, and the new-look Illustrated Weekly of India under the editorship of Khushwant Singh. (India today was initially targeted at Indians settled abroad, but having failed miserably to make an impression, changed gears to target its product at the upper and middle class at home). Its inspiration right from its red-border cover page to its mode of gathering and editing and packaging news has been Time – International. So it came as no surprise when in 1992, India today became the official agent of Time Magazine in India, collecting subscriptions and advertisements for it. It was only the National policy oppose  to the entry of the foreign Press that has kept Time from publishing it. Asian edition from New Delhi.(The Living Media Group which publishes India Today has, however, launched the publication of Cosmopolitan under the pretext that it is an India Magazine ).

Other magazines to be launched in quick succession in the early eighties included Gentleman, Gentleman Fashion quarterly (GFQ), Onlooker, New Delhi, Bombay, The Week ,G and others. Several new film magazines and computer magazines also took of around the same time. The new Magazines  introduced colour, gloss and a snazzy style of reporting which ‘personalised’ and dramatised issues and events. Photographs., illustrations charts and graphs enlivened each page and the focus was on soft features. High quality printing on imported glazed paper lent the magazines an expensive look. This pleased the advertising community immensely.

The boom comtinued into the 1990 despite the closure of long –established magazine like The Illustrated Weekly of India and Bombay. The growth was spectacular in the case of special interest magazines, especially those dealing with business and finance, computers and electronics. Several special interest periodicals were launched in 1993:. Parenting, Young Mother, Auto India, and Car & Bike. Other new magazines of the mid-1990s included Studio System, a bi-monthly on audio, video and recording, Eating Out, Indian thoroughbred’ (on hoarse-rearing), Golfing Yours, Dost (for homosexuals), and TV Today. The last, a publication from the Living Media stable, folded tem months after It hit the stands. 

See Also :

Print Media and Communication	Freedom of Press - The right to Publish and Privacy
Communication and Print media	Council Guides to Journalistic Ethics
Introduction to Print Media	Censorship in the Press and Media
Developments in Print Media	Media Laws
Contribution of News Papers	Press Ownership and Monopoly
Contribution of Magazines	Media Organisations and News Agencies
Press Commissions and Councils	The Mass Media
The Power of Press	Functions of Mass Media
History of Indian Journalism	Theories of the Press or Media
Press Censorship under the Emergency	Code of Ethics for Journalists
News Values in Journalism	Readership and Popularity of Magazine
Magazine genres-Types of Magazine