News values are important. Why else would they be called news values? Many people have come up with lists of news values including Galtung & Ruge, Golding & Elliot and O'Neill & Harcup.
Personally, the list of news values that I adhere to are "The Big 6", suggested by Murray Masterson in 1995.
According to Masterson, the six most prominent news values are:
1. Significance/Impact
2. Proximity - location as well as emotional, historical, cultural and social significance
3. Conflict
4. Human Interest
5.The unusual/Novelty
6. Prominence - news relating to high profile people
News values are important to consider as a journalist because if you want to sell your story (and you do), it is necessary to understand what people are willing to buy and what they're interested in. There will always be a niche market where these news values don't strictly apply, but overall, the public wants to hear about things that are going to have an effect
on them, they want to hear about conflict and confrontations, they want
to hear about famous people, they want to hear stories that make them
feel (human interest).
To me, it's about understanding what people want and what they need because while some might be content to just read celebrity gossip and whatnot, it is vital that they know what else is going on around them. The important things. It is our role as journalists to provide that. We need to filter out all of the unimportant happenings to provide the public with information that they need. In order to do that we need news values to sort through everything that happens all over the world every day.
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