What is news?

News is not news unless it interests readers: these are the generally accepted characteristics of news:

Impact — how many people does it affect? how large an area is affected?

Timeliness — is this news or history?

Prominence — are the actors in the story someone the reader will recognize?

Proximity — how close is the action?

Novelty — is this unusual, rare (for for tabloids, bizarre)?

Conflict — is there more than one viewpoint, interest involved in the action?

Currency — is this something that is an ongoing topic of interest, e.g. the economy?

A good news story scores in several of these areas but a story that scores in none is not newsworthy at all. These news values do not affect how a story addresses this issue but it’s important to be able to identify news. Sometime, it may help you identify a non-story, which, if published, raises fairness issues.