CHAPTER II
THE STUDY OF NEWS STORIES
Value of study. Every good news story may be regarded as a solution of a difficult problem in gathering, selecting, and weaving together a number of details. The steps in the solution may be as carefully followed as the steps in solving a problem in algebra or in performing an experiment in physics. As in the analysis of such problems and experiments, so in the analysis of news stories, the ultimate purpose is to find out how to solve similar problems as they arise in actual experience. However interesting the theories and principles of the art of news writing may be for themselves, it is the practical application of them in the writer’s own work that gives them their value for the student of journalism.
Aims in studying news stories. The purpose in analyzing typical examples of news writing should be to discover in detail (1) how to obtain news, (2) how to determine its value, and (3) how to present it most effectively. Most stories reveal the means by which their contents were obtained and the importance which the writer or editor attached to each of the details. Sources of information and standards for evaluating material are thus shown by a careful examination of examples. A study of well-written news stories makes clear the application of the principles of prose composition to the writing of news. A comparison of several news stories of the same type brings out the variety of ways in which similar material may be handled. The writer must know the varied possibilities of treating material, because, in working on similar matter from day to day, he is in great danger of dropping into conventional forms and stereotyped expressions.
Methods of analysis. In the study of a news story the following points should be considered: (1) the value of the news; (2) the sources of the news; (3) the methods by which it was obtained; (4) the purpose of the story; (5) the type of the story; (6) the structure; (7) the literary style; and (8) the typographical style.
News and news values. News, as commonly defined, is anything timely that interests a number of readers, and the best news is that which has the greatest interest for the greatest number. Constructive journalism is not satisfied to present merely what readers are naturally interested in; it aims to give news that is significant to them from the point of view of their personal affairs as well as from that of the welfare of society. It likewise undertakes to create interest in significant news that of itself may not interest a considerable number of readers. Each story, therefore, should be examined in order to determine why the news in it was considered of interest and significance to the readers of the paper in which it was published, as well as how great the interest and the significance were believed to be as indicated by the space given to the story.
News values are based largely on the reader’s interest in (1) timely matters, (2) extraordinary events and circumstances, (3) struggles for supremacy in politics, business, sports, etc., (4) matters involving the property, life, and welfare of fellow men, (5) children, (6) animals, (7) hobbies and amusements.
The degree of the reader’s interest in these matters of news is proportionate to (1) his familiarity with the persons, the places, and the things involved, (2) the importance and the prominence of these persons, places, and things, (3) the closeness of their relation to the reader’s personal affairs.
The distinction between local news and general news grows out of the greater degree of interest on the part of the reader in persons and places that he knows and in matters that are closely related to his business and his home. News of significance concerning the community in which he lives is of prime importance to every reader. Interest in news may generally be said to vary inversely in proportion to the distance between the place where the news originates and the place where the paper is published. Local interest is given to general news by bringing out those phases, or “local ends,” of telegraph news that are of significance in the community in which the paper circulates.
Every story indicates the evaluation of the news that it presents as made by the reporter or correspondent, and by the editor or the copy-reader. By determining the basis of this evaluation, the student acquires a criterion by which to judge the news value of whatever he is called upon to report.