What is news

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What is news?

• Some definitions

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• What readers want to know
• What readers ought to know
• News answers the reporters question
• What happened?
• All the rest is storytelling.
• News is that which is out of the ordinary.

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News

• News is a timely account of a recent,
  interesting, and significant event.
  
• How recent is it?
• Breaking news follow up story.
• The Dateline
• How interesting is it?
• Things that directly affect the reader.
• Proximity celebrity basic needs shared
  humanity.
  
• How significant is it?
• Historical significance, personal impact.

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Newspaper

• A newspaper is a publication, usually printed on
  newsprint, published at regular intervals,
  typically daily or weekly, and containing useful
  information such as news, commentary, feature
  stories, and advertising.

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Newsprint

• Newsprint is a low-grade paper made from wood
  pulp used chiefly for newspapers.

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News Story

• A news story is a written account of a recent,
  interesting, and significant event produced for
  dissemination to large groups of people.

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Media

• Media is the plural of medium

The media is just out to make money.
Incorrect The media are just out to make money
. Correct

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Medium

• A medium is an intermediate substance, agency, or
  instrument through which a force acts or an
  effect is produced.

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Molly, you in danger girl!
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Medium

• In the same way, a newspaper, magazine, radio or
  television broadcast, a web site, and a bulletin
  board (either physical or virtual) each is a
  medium.
• Each medium is an intermediate agent carrying a
  message from a source to a recipient.

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Mass Media

• Mass Media are means of communication that reach
  very large numbers of people simultaneously.

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News Media

• News media are means of communication that send
  news to very large numbers of people
  simultaneously.
  
• Mass media are part of the news media to the
  extent that they carry the news.

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Magazine

• A magazine is a publication issued periodically,
  bound in a paper cover, and typically containing
  articles, stories, essays, poems, and so on by
  many writers and usually including photographs,
  illustrations, and advertising.
• Magazines usually focus around subject area
  interests newspapers more likely to appeal to a
  general-interest audience in a more limited
  geographic area.

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Broadcast

• To broadcast is to scatter or disseminate
  something widely.

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Broadcast media

• Broadcast media (such as radio and television)
  are enterprises that transmit information,
  including entertainment, news, and advertising by
  sending electromagnetic waves over large areas.

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Journalism

• Journalism is the occupation or profession of
  reporting, writing, editing, photographing,
  publishing, or broadcasting news.
  
• Comes from the Latin diurnal, meaning daily.

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Joseph Pulitzers Three Rules of Journalism

• Accuracy

Accuracy
Accuracy
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A few other rules

• Remember the basics.
• Who, what, where, when, why, and how.
• Find your focus
• Whats the story? Whats the point?
• Think short Use short words in short sentences
  in short paragraphs in short stories.
  
• Be objective.

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Your basic obligation is to your reader.

• Dont write for your source.
• Dont write for yourself.
• What does the reader need to know?
• If its not interesting to you no one will read
  it.