News is anything that happens that people want to know about.
When you wake up in the morning and turn on the television, radio or computer, you might be watching a news report about something that happened last night, or maybe a story about an event that is happening now. It could be a story about a walk to school, or a news report about baby tigers that were rescued from a forest near their home.
A good example of this is the recent report about a group of baby tigers who were rescued from their mother and given new lives at a refugee camp. It’s a newsworthy event because it has the potential to affect many people.
It’s also a story that has a lot of drama, with clearly identifiable good and bad people or situations.
Another good example is a news story about a robbery at a convenience store that makes it clear who was good and who was bad.
This is a good example of what Galtung and Ruge identified in their 1965 study as news values. It focuses on four factors: relevancy, topicality, composition and expectations.
While these factors are still important, Brighton and Foy (2007) argue that they have changed since the 1960s, with broadcast journalism, rolling news and digital media now having an effect on selection decisions. They propose a set of new variables to consider in order to understand the impact of these developments on news selection.