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Change
It is a basic news value. If nothing happens there will be no change. But the world is not static. Every moment things are different from the moment before. The bigger the change and the more the people affected by this change the more important it is from the news point of view.
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Conflict
Actual conflicts and even the danger of conflicts make news as they tend to bring about major change. All wars and threats leading to wars have proven record of news worthiness. But conflict of smaller dimensions like group or personal conflicts resulting crimes, strikes and demonstrations etc. also make news. Even conflicting ideas and resulting debates make up news tension and suspense offer associated with conflicts are also regarded as news values.
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Disaster
Be it a result of natural calamity like an earth quake or a volcano eruption or be it a man made event like the Bhopal Gas tragedy or the air crash disasters always make news. It is also true of disasters of lesser dimensions like boat tragedies, small acts of sabotage resulting in loss of life or properly or both.
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Progress
Progress is also a news value as it is the positive result of efforts made by society. It improves quality of life. Through routine struggles of life frequently emerge shining successes. From laboratories after years of work emerge new devices, new inventions, new remedies. All this and its various dimensions make news.
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Consequences
The immediate and long term consequences of an event also make news. The more people it affects the greater the consequences. Fear of consequence of an event of makes news. Thus possible consequences of a nuclear war make news and all efforts to avert it and failures or successes in that direction make news.
Consequences also serve as measure of conflicts, disaster and progress. The greater the consequence, the more the news value.
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Cause
Like consequence the cause of news worthy event also makes news. Every event has consequences and has its causes also the cause of a hotel fire may be known immediately. It will make news, but if it is not all efforts to find out the cause and possible interpretations of Punjab crisis will keep on making news from time to time.
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Eminence and Prominence
Involvement of eminent personalities in an event adds to its news value and it is directly proportional to the prominence of the person. Thus, if an eminent scholar says something on a problem it will have news value while the some remarks by an ordinary person may go unnoticed. When KCR, a party leader fell down while getting down from helicopter it become national news. If this would have happened to a less known figure the importance of that event would have been reduced to that order.
Prominence is many a time built up by media. Media had a major role in bringing Tamail Singh Bindran wale, Charles Shobraj Billa and Ranga & rajnarain in to prominence and then whatever they said or did, even if it did not have any other news value, got into news papers just because of their prominence people were interested in them because they were familiar. A big chunk of news in media is about those who are known.
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Timeliness
It is a basic news value as add news is no news. In a highly competitive world of journalism every medium tries to be first with news. News is highly perishable commodity and therefore every medium tries to give the latest available to score a point over the other.
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Proximity
News is meant for human being. The prime concern of a man is himself then he is interested in his neighborhood. Traffic jam in Bombay but may not find a place in a Delhi newspaper. If the prime minister is visiting Madras edition of Indian express as compared to the Chandigarh edition of the same newspaper.
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Novelty
If a dog bites a man, it is not news but if a man bites a dog it is news. This old newspaper saying recognizes the news values of the unusual-novelty.
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Human interest
Almost everything in news concerns human being, but this particular news value is the emotional context of the news event. Anything that appeals to everybody shares human experience has news values. Human interest is the element with which the reader identifies anything familiar that stirs his feelings crime stories often have a human interest angle that makes them readable.
Human interest context of stories is highly when ordinary person in ordinary situations. An event may have many or this entire news story is more important than the other, which should be printed or broad cast and which should be left out.
Participants