MDIA1002 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: News Values, News One, University Of New South Wales
09/03/18 UNSW notes | MDIA1002 Monique Munro
1
Media & Communication Contexts
Week 3 notes
MDIA1002 Lecture
Media use survey
• Watching commercial TV news
- x0-1/ week: 30%
- x6-7/ week: 7%
• Watching ABC/SBS
- x0-1/ week: 48%
- x6-7/ week: 5%
• Mainstream news on web: a little bit everywhere
• Social media:
- X6-7/ week: 36%
- X8+/ week: 40%
• Blogs: x0-1/week: 68%
• Radio: x0-1/ week: 52%
• Print: x0/ week: 88%
Reading
• Chap 2, p.33 & Chap 15 p.334-342
- Good for writing task one
Key Points
• Hard news
- One of the most traditional for telling news stories
- Understanding this will help you understand news values and how they can drive
a story
- Our approach, how this genre works
+ If you can crack a genre, you can write anything
- The purpose of hard news, how that relates to structure of hard news
+ Picking up patterns
+ The writing of any form and how you
may master it
Struck by an Auto while returning from Father
Mayers Funeral
• What is the primary news value of the
story?
- She was saved
- She broke her spine
+ With the same facts you can make
different stories, different angles
• The information comes later on in the
story, you have to read the whole thing to
get either of those pieces of information
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
09/03/18 UNSW notes | MDIA1002 Monique Munro
2
• Its an old story
- Not like modern news from its structure, language
• Purpose: To chronicle events
- Every step in chronological order, every detail
- Genre: Recounting/ retelling the series of events
• Structure: Recount/ sequence
Contemporary news
A 17 year old boy was killed instantly when a car carrying eight school friends- two in the
boot- skidded on a bend and slammed into a tree yesterday
• Almost tells us everything, all the details of the event in terms of what makes it
newsworthy
• Purpose: To highlight key news values
- A boy was killed: Primary piece of info
- Nesoth eause it is a Disuptio to the soial ode White
- Watchdog, town crier function
- News value: Impact on society to lose a young person
• Structure: ??
- How does the structure of a modern news story work and how the lead functions
in that structure?
Hard News: Decoding time
• From the hard news story, you can extract the series of events, recounting the
history of time/ events
- School friends leave school at
lunchtime
- Ca ito a, i to i oot
- Set out for friends home on
way to sports
- Raining
- Driver loses control on bend
- Skids on gravel
- Veers off road
- Crashes into tree
- Driver killed
• What do we get in the lead?
+ A 17 yr old killed instantly
+ When a car carrying 8 school friends
+ Two in the boot
+ Skidded on a bend
+ And slammed into a tree yesterday
- How does this work in relation to
time?
+Tie is all suashed i the lead
+ The driver getting killed is the first
thing we read in the lead because that
is the point in the story, point of
impact is the death
+ School friends first in story, second in
lead
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
09/03/18 UNSW notes | MDIA1002 Monique Munro
3
+ Skidding on gravel later in story but included the lead
- The points in time are rearranged, the story is no longer told chronologically
+ You a etat hoolog fo the sto ut the hoolog doest structure
the story
+ The pupose ist to eout eets ut to highlight the ke poits of es
Hard news: Leads
• Captures the whole story
- What is newsworthy in the story
• Who, what, when, where, Why, How
• Decoupled from time
- May have a point in time bit is not told chronologically
- Begins at the climax
• Highlights the chosen news value (impact)
• One sentence (occasional two)
• 20-25 words (no more than 30)
• Ojetie laguage: Diet, peise, No olou No opiios, o ealuatios
Hard news Lead examples
• Different stories but are all encapsulating the main
point and newsworthiness of each story
• Some news stories are about events that have
happened or issues
- We do not
+ Use words that evoke attitude or judgement, evaluation or
opinion in the lead Tagiall shokig ioet Dot
have a place in hard news
The rest of the story: Structuring hard news
• The inverted pyramid
- The most important information is at the
beginning (headline/ lead)
- A graduation of importance filtering down, least
important info at the end
- Use this as a okig tool ut it doest eall
explain the structure of news because they are not structured from most to least
important points
- If it was a pyramid balancing from one point, and it was cropped from one end, it
will still hold however, if it Is cropped from the middle, it will fall apart
- These stoies dot fall do if the ae opped fo the iddle theefoe the
are not inverted pyramids
An alternative perspective: Orbital structure
• Developed by White and Thomson, 2008
• Centred around a nucleus (Headline, lead)
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Media use survey: watching commercial tv news x0-1/ week: 30% x6-7/ week: 7, watching abc/sbs. X6-7/ week: 5: mainstream news on web: a little bit everywhere, social media: X8+/ week: 40: blogs: x0-1/week: 68, radio: x0-1/ week: 52, print: x0/ week: 88% Reading: chap 2, p. 33 & chap 15 p. 334-342. One of the most traditional for telling news stories. Understanding this will help you understand news values and how they can drive a story. + if you can crack a genre, you can write anything. The purpose of hard news, how that relates to structure of hard news. + the writing of any form and how you may master it. Struck by an auto while returning from father. + with the same facts you can make different stories, different angles: the information comes later on in the story, you have to read the whole thing to get either of those pieces of information.
