Print Journalism

BA(JMC)
Dr Sahil Koul
 Road Map

Newspaper Reading Understanding News What is Journalism?

Elements of News Who is a Journalist? What are the Types of News Stories?

Structure of a Newsroom
How to write a News Story? News Editing

How to write a good news story? Use of Graphics, Cartoons, Photographs in News
 History of Printing

• Early Mesopotamian civilisation before 3000 BCE

• The Chinese were the first to invent the art of printing. They made wooden blocks to print letters during the
period of the Tang Dynasty in 600 AD

• The oldest known surviving printed work in a woodblock is a Buddhist scripture of 684 AD. It is now
exhibited in a calligraphy museum in Tokyo, the capital of Japan
• The first printed book published in China was the Buddhist text, the “Diamond Sutra” by
Wang Chick in 868 AD

• Some copies of the Buddhist scriptures printed in 1377 are preserved in museums in China. This
book is now housed in the British Library in London

• Though the Egyptians made paper by 3500 BC, it came to Europe only by the 11th century. The
first paper mill in Europe was set up in Spain in 1120
• Block printing came to Europe by 1300

• It is believed that Johannes Gutenburg of Germany had developed printing technology around
1439. Gutenburg also invented an oil-based ink for printing. He printed the Bible in 1450 in
the Latin language with 1282 pages .He used movable printing blocks for the book

• In both China and Egypt the use of small stamps for seals preceded the use of larger blocks.
• Later, movable-type presses using cast ceramics were employed in China from the early years of
the last millennium

• The carved wooden blocks used for this early method of printing were also used in Japan and
Korea as early as the 8th century

• An important advancement to woodblock printing came in the early 11th century, when a
Chinese peasant named Bi Sheng developed the world's first movable type. Sheng’s movable
characters methods were made out of baked clay
• The ink used was a mix of pine resin, wax and paper ashes, and this method could be used to
print thousands of copies of a document fairly quickly

• Later, earthenware movable type was used by several other Chinese printers throughout the
12th and 13th centuries

• In 1377, the first movable metallic types were invented in Goryeo Dynasty in Korea, which is
the oldest extant movable metal print book
• In the 14th century, Wang Chen, a Chinese government official of the Yuan Dynasty,
independently created his own set of movable characters out of wood, using tried-and-true
woodblock methods, not movable type

• Metal type ( made from bronze and perhaps tin) was also used in China for the printing of
books and paper money until at least the 18th century

• Metal movable type was also developed independently in Korea in the late 14th century.
• The mechanization of bookmaking led to the first mass production of books in Europe

• A single Renaissance printing press could produce 3,600 pages per workday

• Printing technology came to India in 1556. It was the Jesuit priests who brought this technology
to our country.

• The first book printed in India was in Portuguese language in Old Goa.
Origin and Growth of Indian Journalism
• First printing press was set up in Mumbai in 1674

• Second printing press was set up in Madras

• Third printing press was set up in Calcutta in 1779

James Augustus Hickey, an
English man, started and edited the first
newspaper in India.
On 29th January 1780, in
Calcutta, Bengal Gazette or the

Calcutta General
Advertiser (popularly known as
Hickey’s Journal) began with two
sheet as a weekly.
19th century: The first real journalist arrived in
Calcutta--- James Silk
Buckingham. Buckingham the Editor of
Calcutta Chronicle
The first issue :October 2, 1818; it was
termed as a chronicle of political, commercial and
literary news and views.
• The first newspaper published in Indian language was Samachar Darpan (Mirror of News) in
Bengali.
famous and
• Its first number was issued on May 23, 1818. The missionaries, Ward, Carey Marshman,
it from Seram
published pore,
which was then a foreign,
that is to say,
non-British settlement.
• The Sumbad Koumudi was founded
and edited by Raja Ram Mohan Roy

Mirat-ul-Akhbar
He also edited

(Mirror of Intelligence) a
Persian newspaper
Roy started the Brahminical Magazine to counteract
the missionaries propaganda
 Indian the in was first
• Another purely newspaper, Bombay Samachar, Gujarati, published in 1822 by Fardaonji
Murzban.

• Messer B Messinck and Peter Read the ‘Indian Gazette’ in November 1780
• Calcutta Gazette 1784
• The Bengal Journal 1785
• 1785, Richard Johnson in Madras brought out ‘Madras Courier’ in English language.
• In Bombay first newspaper was ‘Bombay Herald’ in 1789

• Bombay Courier in 1789

• Bombay Gazette in 1791

• Samachar Darpan was the first Bengali newspaper

• On 3 November, 1838 , The Times of India issued its first edition as The Bombay Times
• In 1861, The first edition of The Times of India was published by Robert Knight

• In 1868, 'Amrit Bazaar Patrika' was started by two brothers, Shishir Kumar Ghosh and
MotilalGhosh

• In 1878, "The Hindu" was started in the English language, which was mainly distributed in
Tamil Nadu and Kerala.

• News agency services became available on a regular basis with the Press Trust of India which
was started in 1946
 Development of Magazines in India

• The first Indian periodical was the Asiatick Miscellany (Calcutta, 1785-1789), probably edited by F. Gladwin
• The Calcutta Monthly Register was published in 1790, and the Calcutta Monthly Journal from 1798 to 1841
• Asiatic Observer (1823-1824)
• The Quarterly Oriental Magazine (1824-1827),
• The Royal Sporting Magazine (1833- 1838)
• The Calcutta Literary Gazette was published in 1830-1834
• The Bombay Magazine was started in 1811

• The Bombay Quarterly Magazine (1851-1853) gave place to the Bombay Quarterly Review,
issued in 1855

• Madras: Madras had a Journal of Literature and Science and the Oriental Magazine and
Indian Hurkuru (1819)

• The Indian Antiquary was started at Bombay in 1872 and still continues
Indian Press and the Freedom Movement
 Journalism
Meaning and Definition
• Kovach and Rosenstiel (2001) summarises the concepts, values and elements of journalism as:
• Public service: journalists provide a public service (as watchdogs or ‘newshounds’, active collectors and disseminators of
information);
• Objectivity: journalists are impartial, neutral, objective, fair and (thus) credible;
• Autonomy: journalists must be autonomous, free and independent in their work;
• Immediacy: journalists have a sense of immediacy, actuality and speed (inherent in the concept of ‘news’);
• Ethics: journalists have a sense of ethics, validity and legitimacy
• Journalist means a person engaged in the profession or occupation of journalism in connection with the publication of information,
comment, opinion or analysis in a news medium
• Journalism means:
The practice of investigating, collecting, verifying and/or preparing, or editing, for dissemination of information, commentary, opinion or
analysis, including but not limited to news or current affairs;
for the purpose of making that information, commentary, opinion or analysis available to the public, or a section of the public; and
in respect of which a relevant person or persons abides by a journalists’ code of practice, or the organisation for which they work is governed
by, or submits to, a journalists’ code of practice.
• In the common understanding of democracy, journalists act as the ‘fourth estate’, standing as guardians
of the public interest, and watchdogs on the activities of government
• The practice of investigating, collecting, verifying and/or preparing, or editing, for dissemination of
information, commentary, opinion, or analysis, including but not limited to news or current affairs;

• for the purpose of making that information, commentary, opinion, or analysis available to the public,
or a section of the public; and

• in respect of which a relevant person or persons abides by a journalists’ code of practice, or the
organisation for which they work is governed by, or submits to, a journalists’ code of practice.
What is News?
• What is Included? What is Excluded, and Why?

• Report of recent events

• Previously unknown information

• Something having a specified influence or effect

• Material reported in a newspaper or news periodical

• Matter that is newsworthy

• News is anything out of the ordinary

• News is the unusual picture of life

• News is anything that will make people talk about (the more it excites, the greater its value)

• Comprises all current activities which are of general human interest

• The best news is that which interests most of the readers

• News is anything that is fresh

• The etymology of the word “news” from Latin “nova” which means “new things”. The Concise Oxford
English Dictionary defines news as topical information worth noting. “To put at its simplest, news is a
record of latest events, incidents and developments that in some way touch on the lives of newspaper’s and
magazine’s readers”
• According to Walter Lippmann “news and truth are not the same thing, and must be clearly distinguished.
The function of news is to signalize an event, the function of truth is to bring to light the hidden facts, to
set them into relation with each other, and make a picture of reality on which men can act.[…] The news is
not a mirror of social conditions, but the report of an aspect that has obtruded itself. The news does not tell
you how the seed is germinating in the ground, but it may tell you when the first sprout breaks through the
surface”
• According to the Royal Commission on the Press (1949), in order for an event to be news, it needed to meet the
following conditions – it must be new and interesting to the public, that is be about people and their various strange
or funny experiences, tragedies, accidents, crime or sport events

• Wilbur Schramm (1949), who pointed out that news exists in the minds of the people, “news is not the event but is
the report of the event”

• Walter Gieber in 1964 proposed, news is what appears in the press and more precisely, “news is what newspapermen
make it”. Whether an event is to become news or not is decided by what newspapermen do with it. Gieber states, “[…]
news does not have an independent existence; news is a product of men who are members of a news-gathering (or a news
originating) bureaucracy”
• American journalist, Fred Morris from NBC stated that news is “what is current, important and influences our life.”
Mark Henderson, a correspondent for the “Times”, defines “News by definition involves unexpected and dramatic, not
the run-of-the-mill”

• Bernard Roshco (1975) points out that news is necessary in order to control the public and to maintain social cohesion.
It is connected to time, is ephemeral and it differs from knowledge which is long term
• Time is a fundamental aspect of all news and it is the deciding factor in publicizing news. Time, according to Roshco,
can be viewed on three levels which constitute its “currency”. In order to meet this criteria it must be 1) recently
discovered, 2) publicized instantly, 3) relevant to present concerns
• Gaye Tuchman believes that a so called constructive approach to news is more creative. He focuses on the activity of
media organizations employees; they decide which event possesses news value. This means that news do not mirror reality.
News is constructed as a social phenomenon, in the process of describing the event; the news defines and shapes the event
• “News is perpetually defining and redefining, constituting and reconstituting social phenomena […]. It not only defines
and redefines, constitutes and reconstitutes social meanings; it also defines and redefines, constitutes and reconstitutes
ways of doing things – the existing processes in existing institutions”
• “Telling stories of social life, news is a social resource. A source of knowledge, a source of power, news is a window on the
world”
• Herbert Gans (1979) pointed out the dynamic character of creation of journalist information. According, to
him, news is information which is transmitted from the source to recipients by journalists who are both –
employees of bureaucratic, commercial organizations and also members of a professional group

• They process, summarize and change what was made available to them into information appropriate to their
recipients. Gans focuses on the processing and creation of news, it is not what was initially presented but an
end result of journalist processing
• W. Lance Bennett, news is a public construction shaped by popular taste (that is what people believe and want to
hear), news agencies, communication strategies of political actors (public opinion surveys, marketing, image
techniques (news management “software”), communication technologies (“hardware” such as telegraph, TV, etc)
• News can be defined as “what politicians promote, news organizations produce, technologies transmit, and people
consume at any moment in history”
• Jack Fuller (1988) stated, “News is a report of what a news organization has recently learned about matters of some
significance or interest to the specific community that news organization serves”
• Jeremy Iggers (1998), news is the end product of a reporter’s daily life experiences. It is he who decides
which elements are newsworthy. Reporter’s presence transforms an event from private to public, media,
meanwhile, transform “obscure occurrences” into news ascribing it symbolic meaning.

• Thomas E. Patterson (1998)“ News is a construct: it is a version of reality shaped in significant part by
journalistic norms and conventions. Through the frames they employ and the gatekeeping role they play,
journalists help to shape public opinion and debate”
• Melvin de Fleur and Everette Dennis, “News is current or fresh knowledge about an event that is gathered,
processed and disseminated via medium to a significant number of interested people”.

• This definition includes three elements. Firstly, the time aspect – the event in the news must be current,
secondly – it must be processed by medium, thirdly – it must be targeted at interested recipients. What
differentiates de Fleur and Dennis’s definition from others is its focus on the co-relation of three aspects
making up news – the event, the medium and the recipient. This triad is similar to the interactions which
were pointed out by Roshco (source – medium – recipient).
 TYPES OF NEWS
• News is classified into four prime categories on the basis of:

• Treatment

• Timeliness

• Geographical spread

• Reporting Beats
 HARD NEWS
• Hard News comprises politics, economy and international affairs
• It also often includes public administration, policy and national security
• It sometimes also includes social matters and crime stories
• The form of hard news is described in terms of qualifiers such as newsworthiness and neutrality,
objectivity, balance and accuracy
• Hard news is important factual news with ramifications, demanding analysis and commentary
• Hard news is often breaking news of high significance that focuses on who, what, where, when, why and
how and is presented as longer text directed at elites audiences, educated, opinion leaders.

• According to Reinemann, “The more a news item is politically relevant, the more it reports in a thematic
way, focuses on societal consequences of events, is impersonal and unemotional in its style, the more it can
be regarded as hard news.”
 SOFT NEWS

• The umbrella term for the opposite of hard news is soft news
• Soft news is treated on its own or it encompasses popular journalism, consumer journalism, lifestyle journalism, service journalism,
sensationalisation or tabloidisation
• Soft news content includes lifestyle, entertainment, sports, culture, arts, celebrities, health, family, education, history, science and
technology, royalty, human interest, travel, advice columns etc
• These are items of light news of immediate public interest with a low level of information value that can be reported at any time
• Soft news focuses on individuals and their personal and emotional experiences, is spectacular, off-beat, colourful, confrontational
• Soft news is utilitarian and concerns sensational and dramatic or specific events often in the
form of scoops and scandals

• The popular appeal of soft news is designed to maximise traffic, is often described as
infotainment

• It is often characterised by terms such as popularisation, tabloidisation, trivialisation,

sensationalism
 Summing up Soft and Hard News

Soft News
• Reports on a light or exotic topic ( gossip, fashion, consumerism) that can be reported at a later time or not all;
• Routine news without great or immediate public significance, and thus can be reported at a later time or not all;
• News that is of interest to a narrow segment of the public;
• Light or routine news that for non-substantive reasons (famous personality) or
media competition (‘scoop’) must be reported immediately
Hard News
• Political, social, economic or serious environmental news of a highly significant nature that needs to be reported as soon as
possible due to its immediate influence or ramifications on the public and surrounding world;
• A breaking, surprising event of great import on most of the public and/or the environment (e.g. epidemic, natural disaster,
terror attack);
• New findings, discovery or report regarding a continuing story of great significance for most of the public and/or the
environment;
• Significant news on the national plane;
• Significant news on the international plane
 but not necessarily immediately;
• Very important utilitarian ‘news that you can use’, but which need not be reported
immediately;
• An event from an important continuing story; General News
• Relatively ‘light’ news regarding a person who has great influence over society;
• Light news relating to important, quality of life topics such as ecology and health,
which do not affect the public in the short term.

•
 SPOT NEWS

• News on any sudden event or happening like a terrorist attack like 9/11, 26/11, Tsunami, Cyclone,
Earthquake in Bhuj, is called Spot news. The journalists are not prepared and clueless about such news
and reporting them is challenging.

• It is also called Hot News

 DIARY NEWS

• Diary news as the name suggests, is the one in which the reporter has information prior to the event.
For example, a cricket match between India and Australia is known to the journalists and they are
well prepared to cover the event but result of the match falls under the spot news category as it is not
known in advance
 Geographical Spread

• News on the basis of the geographical spread is categorised into Local, National and International /global News

• The importance of city page is self - explanatory as it provides information closer to the local people. Therefore every
newspaper has a city or local news page. Such news stories cover events/incidents of crime and civic in a particular city

• News stories which cover events happening in the country or events that have the potential to affect the entire nation
fall under the National news category

• News from across the globe falls under international news. For example, U.S. Presidential elections are international
news but Indian Prime minister Visits Japan, falls under the National News category
 REPORTING BEATS

• In Journalism, beat refers to the area or jurisdiction assigned to a particular reporter to cover

• There are various beats like crime beat which covers incidents of crime, political beat covers national,
international and local news

• In the same way, various other beats are parliamentary, civic, civil, art and culture, entertainment,
environment, sports and education
 NEWS VALUES

• Stuart Hall argues “News values” are one of the most opaque structures of meaning in modern society […]
Journalists speak of “the news” as if events select themselves. Further, they speak as if which is the “most
significant” news story, and which “news angles” are most salient are divinely inspired. Yet of the millions of
events which occur daily in the world, only a tiny proportion ever become visible as “potential news stories”: and of
this proportion, only a small fraction are actually produced as the day’s news in the news media. We appear to be
dealing, then, with a “deep structure” whose function as a selective device is un-transparent even to those who
professionally most know how to operate it.
• James Curran and Jean Seaton suggest that news values allow journalists to
“translate untidy reality into neat stories with beginnings, middles, and
denouements,” and in the process such values tend to “reinforce conventional
opinions and established authority.”
• Johan Galtung and Mari Holmboe Ruge were arguably the first to provide a
systematic list of news values in a paper presented at the first Nordic
Conference on Peace Research in Oslo in 1963, and published in 1965
Galtung and Ruge presented 12 factors (summarized below) that they intuitively identified as being important in
the selection of news:
• Frequency: An event that unfolds within a publication cycle of the news medium is more likely to be selected than
a one that takes place over a long period of time.
• Threshold: Events have to pass a threshold before being recorded at all; the greater the intensity (the more
gruesome the murder or the more casualties in an accident), the greater the impact and the more likely it is to be
selected.
• Unambiguity: The more clearly an event can be understood and interpreted without multiple meanings, the more
likely it is to be selected.
• Meaningfulness: The culturally familiar is more likely to be selected.

• Consonance: The news selector may be able to predict (due to experience) events that will be
newsworthy, thus forming a “pre-image” of an event, which in turn increases its chances of
becoming news.

• Unexpectedness: Among events meaningful and/or consonant, the unexpected or rare event is more
likely to be selected.
• Continuity: An event already in the news has a good chance of remaining in the news (even if its impact
has been reduced) because it has become familiar and easier to interpret.

• Composition: An event may be included as news less because of its intrinsic news value than because it
fits into the overall composition or balance of a newspaper or news broadcast.

• Reference to elite nations: The actions of elite nations are seen as more consequential than the actions
of other nations.
• Reference to elite people: Again, the actions of elite people, likely to be famous, may be seen by news
selectors as having more consequence than others, and news audiences may identify with them.

• Reference to persons: News that can be presented in terms of individual people rather than abstractions is
likely to be selected.

• Reference to something negative: Bad events are generally unambiguous and newsworthy.
• Winfried Schulz (1982) developed the work of Galtung and Ruge by carrying out a content
analysis of newspapers, examining domestic and apolitical news, as well as foreign news.

• He proposed six different dimensions to news selection, which he further broke down into 19 news
factors: status (elite nation, elite institution, elite person); valence (aggression, controversy, values,
success); relevance (consequence, concern); identification (proximity, ethnocentrism,
personalization, emotions); consonance (theme, stereotype, predictability); and dynamics (timeliness,
uncertainty, unexpectedness)
Golding and Elliott suggested the following selection criteria:
• Drama: This is often presented as conflict, commonly as opposing viewpoints.
• Visual attractiveness: They discuss this in terms of images for television though, of course, images are also
relevant to newspapers. “A story may be included simply because film is available or because of the dramatic
qualities of the fi lm”
• Entertainment: In order to captivate as wide an audience as possible, news producers must take account of
entertainment values that amuse or divert the audience. This includes “human interest” stories and the actors in
these whimsical and bizarre events may be celebrities, children and animals.
• Importance: This may mean the reported event is greatly signifi cant for a large proportion of the audience, but
it also explains the inclusion of items that might be omitted on the criteria of other audience-based news values.
• Size: The more people involved in a disaster, or the bigger the “names” at an event, the more likely the item is to be
on the news agenda,
• Proximity: As with size, this derives partly from audience considerations and partly from accessibility since there
is cultural and geographical proximity. The fi rst depends on what is familiar and within the experience of
journalists and their audience, while the second may depend on where correspondents are based. As a rule of
thumb, nearby events take precedence over similar events at a distance
• Negativity: “Bad news is good news... News is about disruptions in the normal current of events […]
not the uneventful”. Such news provides drama and shock value which attracts audiences.

• Brevity: A story that is full of facts with little padding is preferred (particularly important for
broadcast news).

• Recency: Competition between news outlets puts a “premium” on exclusives and scoops. Also daily
news production is within a daily time frame so that news events must normally occur within the 24
hours between bulletins (or newspaper editions) to merit inclusion.
• Elites: Clearly big names attract audiences, but there is a circularity in that big names become famous by
virtue of their exposure.

• 'Personalities: Since news is about people, this is reflected in the need to reduce complex events and issues to
the actions of individuals.
 NEWS VALUES

• Elements of news are what determine a story’s “newsworthiness”

• Timeliness
It is also called Immediacy. Its new so will be in news! Timeliness is the essence of news and is understandably a criterion for news selection.
An event that has just happened makes a good news story, while events happened a few days ago are history. Timely dissemination of news is so
important that an hour or two often changes or kills the value of a news story, particularly if a new angle develops causing it to be rewritten or
when a final deadline passes.
• It is because of this reason that we find words like yesterday, last night, today, early morning etc. in
newspaper reports. Any kind of predictions and prophesies also make news.

• The more recent, more is newsworthiness. In some cases, timeliness is relative. An event may have
occurred in the past but only have been learnt about recently.
• Impact
The significance, importance, or consequence of an event or trend; the greater the consequence, and the larger the
number of people for whom an event is important; the greater the newsworthiness.
One of the obligations of a newsman in selecting, judging and writing news is to determine what is of real
consequence and see that it is reported properly. News of consequence often heralds the march of progress.
• For example, if there is a blackout, the immediate questions asked are – what happened?, how long will
the electricity be gone? What is the electricity department doing? Is there an alternative arrangement?
If these questions are answered, it means that the writer is highlighting the elements of consequence.

• The accidental killing of a little girl during a shootout between rival drug gangs has impact too. Even
though only one person - the little girl – was directly affected, many people will feel a strong emotional
response to the story.
• Proximity

Proximity means nearness. Anything close to reader interests him. Proximity does not mean that the news is
presented in a direct ‘me to you’ appeal. Instead it appeals to a group of people with common interest.

Proximity means mental as well as linear – psychological as well as physical nearness. There is a famous
saying that a dead dog in the courtyard is bigger news than an accident taking place in a distant place.
• Where is the story from? What happens in and around your city interests you than what happened in a
far-flung region. Therefore, newspapers allocate greater space for local news coverage because of the
proximity factor.
• Oddity / Uniqueness

Oddity means something that is unusual, unique, abnormal or exceptional/ rare. Oddity produces most
of the news every day. Variation from what normally happens is news. When a dog bites a man it is
not news but when a man bites a dog; that is news. Oddity creates human interest and emotion both.
• Prominence
Prominence is anything that can be marked as important. Names make news and newspapers like to use as many
local names as possible. Widely heralded people are covered time in and out.
Extremely popular artists, places, novels, monuments, leaders and the like make potential news. The element of
prominence can be applied to situations, dates and issues of the day as well.
• Famous people make news! Virtually every action of famous people is considered to be newsworthy. Stories
concerning the elite, powerful individuals, organizations or institutions are enough to create a news story.
Celebrities are always a subject for news and their every action is under the observation of the media.
• Conflict
Conflict is an open clash between two opposing groups (or individuals). It is a disagreement or argument about something important.
News items with conflict like a football match between two countries, war between two nations and difference in ideologies of two
political parties all contribute to the daily newspapers.
Conflict might be psychological of physiological. Any information about a victory or defeat becomes news because conflicts create
interest in the reader and because of curiosity to know the result; the reader takes interest in the information. Thereby, making the
information; news.
• Size
A bigger event gets more attention than a small one. The news about the death of 50 passengers travelling in a city bus will be given more attention
than the news of a motorist accident on the highway.
• Emotion
Emotions can be explained as strong feelings and human responses to outside stimuli. Emotional element provides fertile ground for cultivation of
human interest which is one of the most important qualities that makes news; news.
How do people feel about it? These news stories will be both bad news and good news. Death or tragedy is an example of bad news. Positive news
stories are far more prevalent than is suggested by the cynical claim that only good news is bad news.
• Suspense

William Shakespeare rightly said that the world is a stage and all men and women are mere players but it is
also true that every man and woman wants to know about what is going to happen.

It is basic human nature to ‘find out’ the reasons behind things. Mystery entices us. Suspense covers stories
with ‘what next’ or with apprehensions like what will happen and who will do it? Suspense is a very strong
news value. Suspense gives opportunity to the reporters and writers to infuse drama with news.
• Currency
Readers are quickly glued to stories that possess the appeal of freshly discovered material or facts. Current updates and
status of various matters are checked by readers to keep comprehend the present condition.
• Consequence
What are the effects on the reader? News stories about issues, groups and nations are perceived to be of relevance to the
audience.
• Drama
Dramatic Events of any kind would be an ideal subject for an interesting news story.
• Human Interest
People doing interesting things or incidents having an emotional element. Such stories cover all the feelings that
human beings have including sympathy, happiness, sadness, anger, ambition, love, hate, etc. News stories
concerning entertainment, showbiz, drama, humorous treatment, witty headlines, entertaining photographs will
be of interest to most of the people.
• Progress
Technological advance and new discoveries will always be the subject for discussion and a readable news story.
 CITIZEN JOURNALISM

• The history of citizen journalism is a key element when it comes to understanding citizen journalism as a concept. Due to the development of
technology, the Internet and social media, citizen journalism is often considered as a new phenomenon. Although, according to some authors, it could
not be farther from the truth.

• Wally Hughes states that citizen journalism has been around longer than the profession of journalism itself:

“In 1908, the University of Missouri opened the doors of the world‘s first journalism school, but newspapers had been around for centuries before that. As
a matter of fact, early colonial newspapers in the United States had such an impact on the country that founders included a clause in the First
Amendment protecting freedom of the press. But if the country had no professional journalists (since the profession had not been created, yet), then what
were the framers of the Constitution protecting? “
 CITIZEN JOURNALISM: DEFINITION & CONCEPT

• Citizen journalism is a phenomenon in which the audience employs the press tools they possess in order to inform one another.
• Citizens become contributors to the media, using many different forms of distributing information. The term which is commonly used
while explaining citizen journalism is “citizen media”.
• According to Aparna Dwivedi, the term, ‘Citizen Media’ was coined by Clemencia Rodriguez, who defined it as “the transformative
processes they bring about within participants and their communities”. Citizen media contributes to the variety of media outlets. The
occurrence of citizen-generated content is a response to mainstream traditional media, which oftentimes neglected public interests and
had a biased portrayal of events and news.
• According to Stuart Allan, citizen journalism can be described as a type of first-person reportage in which individuals adopt or
mimic the role of a professional journalist in order to participate in the news-making, often during a period of crisis, tragedies and
disasters.
• Citizen journalism is a concept in media that refers to journalistic activities of ordinary people. It means citizens themselves report
the issues confronting them. Citizen journalism has enabled people to raise their voice on what they feel need attention. These people
are, thus, termed as citizen journalists.
• Duffy, Thorson and Jahng have defined "citizen journalist" as an individual, who is not a trained professional, but who nonetheless
may report on his or her neighborhood or community. Citizen journalists or amateur reporters are none but the general audience,
that is, viewers, readers and listeners of mainstream media. Referring to citizen journalists as "people formerly known as the
audience.”
• Citizen journalism is also known as participatory and democratic journalism.
• There are various other synonyms used for citizen journalism - "public journalism," "civic journalism,"
"stand-alone journalism," "networked journalism," "open source journalism," "crowd-sourced journalism,"
"collaborative journalism," "grassroots journalism," "community journalism," "bridge media" and so on.
• These forms of journalism are related to "citizen journalism", but each is a unique species that has evolved out
of a larger family of social media. All these terms refer to different acts.
• Bowman and Willis (2003) in New Media. They define citizen journalism as the act of
non-professionals, playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analysing and disseminating
news and information. This definition covers all the possible activities of citizen journalists in existence.
The authors further write, "the intent of this participation is to provide independent, reliable, accurate,
wide-ranging and relevant information that a democracy requires."
 FUNCTIONS OF CITIZEN JOURNALISM

• CŠejn Husejnefendić (2016: 308) classifies the function of citizen journalism into two categories:
1) citizen journalism can be equal to professional journalism in countries with a high level of democracy (for
instance, in Germany, Canada, Austria and South Korea)
2) citizen journalism can be a supplement to mainstream media, but sometimes even acts as a replacement of
traditional media in the less democratic countries (for example, certain African or Asian countries).
 ROLE OF CITIZEN JOURNALISM

• The roles of citizen journalism is not only to inform people, but broaden the content published by traditional media.
• Dr. Saqib Riaz stated that the big media organizations lost their monopoly over news because of the evolution of citizen journalism. With the
Internet and social media, sharing information has never been easier, which also means that hiding information requested by the public is
highly unlikely, if not impossible. Riaz claims that citizens’ involvement in the news process breaks down the media hegemony. That means that
citizen journalism contributes to pluralism in the media. In addition, citizens do not have some hidden agenda, they just report what they
witness and experience.
• Nadine Jurrat, an independent media researcher, poses three main events which shaped citizen journalism.
• The first one is the terrorist attack on New York City and the Pentagon on 11 September 2001. During the
attack, the general public searched for eyewitness reports on the web for the first time.
• The second one was the 2004 Asian tsunami, where the term “citizen journalism” was used for the first time.
• The third one were the 2005 London bombings when witnesses started sending their footage of the attack to
the mainstream media.
• Citizen journalism contributes to the democratization of the society. More voices in the public
arena can add to a more lively democracy. This is especially important when it comes to censorship.
It is common that in the countries with a political system where all relevant information are
censored, citizen journalists become the advocates for democracy, and sometimes the only truthful
news source.

• Citizen and other independent media not only inform people, but critically question various
problems and make governmental actions more transparent.
 ADVANTAGES OF CITIZEN JOURNALISM

• The mainstream media confines the news to the market. Alternative media facilitates interactive audiences which are only mass in traditional media.
It develops the sense of active audience by transforming them from marginal or marginalized tendencies which are prevalent in the mainstream media
• Sometimes citizen journalists break the news on the Internet before the traditional or mainstream journalists. Such kind of tendency has reduced the
monopoly of and dependency on mainstream journalism.
• Citizen journalists cover the issues confronting them more than the issues that appear in the mainstream media. They cannot be compared with
mainstream media journalists. However, they cover anything newsworthy, and their role should be accepted and acknowledged. It is also assessed that
as the accessibility of technology is on the rise, citizen journalism will be more accepted and practiced.
• There is a definite link among citizen journalism, public opinion, and cultivating democracy. It is also found that
the normative role of the journalist as gatekeeper is challenged in creating and distributing the information. It
democratizes the mode of dissemination of information. It is used by mainstream media is an alternative media
that can expose social injustice for the betterment of society.
• Editorial independence is the most striking feature of citizen journalism.
• Citizen journalism is people-centric, hyper-local and hence, becoming a separate entity from traditional
journalism.
• Citizen Journalism is participatory in nature.
 DISADVANTAGES OF CITIZEN JOURNALISM

• lack of credibility of information

• Citizen journalism is involved with unconfirmed assessments. So far as quality is concerned, such kind of journalism in
subjective, amateurish, and haphazard in quality.
• Sometimes it has the problem of exaggerating unusual one-time cases, resulting in distortion of facts.

•
• The norm of objectivity and accountability in citizen journalism based on user-generated content is
far-fetched. he mainstream media is possessed with authenticity, credibility, and responsibility. It enjoys
the trust of the audience because of a proper system of professional functioning. The audience prefers
news and information by professional journalists rather than citizen journalists. So, mainstream
journalism cannot be replaced by citizen journalism, can only complement it.
• The content in citizen journalism is of poor quality and hardly possesses news values. Such kind of
journalism does rarely adhere to journalistic ethics. Also, many times the content is subjected to
plagiarism, showing the loophole of such journalistic practice.
• Citizen journalism is sometimes perceived as “amateurish” or as a “bad version” of the mainstream media

• Many criticize citizen journalism and its lack of regulations and codes of ethics. However, a few codes of ethics have emerged for
online or citizen journalists. According to Cyberjournalist.net’s Blogger’s Code of Ethics, responsibilities of citizen journalists are the
following: to be honest and fair, accountable, and to minimize harm

• Many authors have proposed numerous solutions to the ongoing problem of ethics in citizen journalism. Martin Kuhn proposed a
variety of practical and ethical guidelines, such as promoting interactivity, striving for factual truth, transparency and free
expression (Roberts, Steiner, 2012: 9).

• Reporting rumours as facts

Attribution
• Attribution is stating who said something. Attribution is essential in all the media, including radio and
television.

• Journalists do it so that the readers or listeners can know who is speaking or where the information in
the story comes from.

• Journalists can use attribution for both spoken and written information, so that you attribute
information gathered from interviews, speeches, reports, books, films or even other newspapers, radio or
television stations.
 FOUR LEVELS OF ATTRIBUTION

• On the record

• On background

• On deep background

• Off the record

 On-the-record

• On-the-record” attribution means that everything the source says may be published and quoted directly,
and the source may be fully identified by name and title.

• Reporters should try to keep as much as possible of every interview on the record. This allows readers to
see or hear the source’s exact words and know who the source is.
 On Background

• “On background,” which is sometimes referred to as “not for attribution,” means the reporter may quote the
source directly but may not attribute the statements to the source by name.

• The reporter may describe the source by her position.

• Patrick E. Tyler of The New York Times used on-background sources for a story exposing U.S. military
assistance to Iraq during its war against Iran. Tyler reported the United States had covertly provided
intelligence and battle plans to Iraq even though U.S. officials knew Saddam Hussein was using chemical
weapons against both Iranian troops and civilian rebels inside Iraq.

• Much of Tyler’s story was attributed to “senior military officers with direct knowledge of the program” or
“former Defense Intelligence Agency officers” who were willing to talk only on the condition that they not
be identified.
• When reporters use on-background information, they try to describe the source as fully as possible.

• To say the information came from “a government employee” is meaningless. Saying the source is “a member
of the House Appropriations Committee staff” gives readers more information.
 On Deep Background

• “On deep background” is a variation of the backgrounder. This level of attribution is sometimes called the Lindley Rule,
named after Ernest K. Lindley, a Newsweek columnist who used it during the Harry Truman administration to
persuade U.S. leaders to discuss military and diplomatic affairs.
• A source on deep background may not be quoted directly and may not be identified in any way. A reporter must publish
the information without any attribution or with a phrase like, “It has been learned that. . . .” Unless reporters have a
high degree of confidence in the source and the information and the approval of their supervisors, they should stay
away from information given on deep background.
 Off The Record

• “Off the record” is the final level of attribution. It generally means a source’s information cannot be used,
but that is often misunderstood. Some people say they are speaking off the record when they really mean
they are speaking on background.

• Also, reporters and sources sometimes disagree as to exactly what “off the record” means. The U.S. State
Department’s Office of Press Relations says reporters may not use off-the-record information in any
way. Reporters, however, sometimes use off-the-record information as leads to other sources.
• Some journalists have deplored the use of anonymous sources as a threat to the independence, accuracy and credibility of the news.
• Benjamin Bradlee, the former executive editor of The Washington Post, said, “Why, then, do we go along so complacently with withholding the
identity of public officials? I’m damned if I know. I do know that by doing so, we shamelessly do other people’s bidding: We knowingly let
ourselves be used. . . . In short, we demean our profession.”
• Anonymity allows sources to try to influence the way journalists cover the news
• The accuracy of information from sources who demand anonymity is always open to question. If the information proves inaccurate, it is the
reporter and the news organization who look foolish, not the source
• A final problem with anonymous sources is that under some circumstances a promise to keep a source’s identity secret can be enforced in court.
 EMBARGO

• In the history of journalism, press embargoes are remembered more in the breach than in compliance.

• A press embargo represents information offered reporters prior to the date and time of official release as
"news."

• It is a system that gives each reporter an equal break on the news, along with time to develop the story
through appropriate interviews and other research.
• They are often used by businesses making a product announcement, by medical journals, and by
government officials announcing policy initiatives; the media is given advance knowledge of details being
held secret so that reports can be prepared to coincide with the announcement date and yet still meet press
time

• In theory, press embargoes reduce inaccuracy in the reporting of breaking stories by reducing the incentive
for journalists to cut corners by writing up information quickly in hopes of "scooping" the competition.
YELLOW JOURNALISM
• Yellow journalism, in short, means biased opinion camouflaged as objective fact

• It involves sensationalism, distorted stories, and misleading images for the sole purpose of boosting
newspaper sales and exciting public opinion

• The term originates from a series of events around a cartoon called "The Yellow Kid”
• The term was coined by Erwin Wardman, the editor of the New York Press

• Wardman was the first to publish the term but there is evidence that expressions such as "yellow
journalism" and "school of yellow kid journalism" were already used by newsmen of that time

• Wardman never defined the term exactly

• In 1883 Joseph Pulitzer purchased The New York World for $346,000

• The newspaper concentrated on human-interest stories, scandal and sensational material

• It was extremely popular, especially the cartoons of its main artist, Richard F. Outcault
• In 1895 William Randolph Hearst purchased The New York Journal, and using the similar approach adopted by
Joseph Pulitzer, began to compete with the New York World. Pulitzer responded by producing a colour
supplement
• This included “The Yellow Kid”, a new cartoon character drawn by Richard F. Outcault
• This cartoon became so popular that William Randolph Hearst, owner of the New York Journal, offered the
artist a considerable amount of money to join his newspaper
• Joseph Pulitzer then had to employ a new artist, George Luks, to produce the Yellow Kid for New York World
• As a result of the importance of Outcault's Yellow Kid character in these events, this circulation war
between the two newspapers became known as “yellow journalism”

• Sadly though, this period of sensationalist news delivery where the so-called yellow press routinely
outsold the more honest newspapers does stand out as a particularly dark era in journalistic history

• The demand of the United States people for absolutely free press allowed such newspapers to steal
headlines and stories directly from other papers, or simply fabricate stories to fit their particular
agenda
• Some experts argue that the tactics used by the New York World and New York Journal partly
influenced the content and style of newspapers in many of the USA's major cities

• Indeed, several aspects of yellow journalism, such as banner headlines, sensational stories, and coloured
supplements, have become a permanent feature of many popular newspapers in the United States and
Europe, especially tabloids
 Photo Captions and Cutlines

• A photo caption should provide the reader basic information needed to understand a photograph and its
relevance to the news. It should be written in a consistent, concise format that allows news organizations
to move the photo to publication without delay.

• A poorly written caption that is uninformative or worse, misleading, can diminish the impact of a good
photo and undermine its credibility as journalism.
 Components of a News Story

• Headline: It catches the attention of the reader and provides the gist/summary of the story. It is usually in
larger font an mostly bold. It is mostly written by a copy editor.

• Deck: A sub head written by the copy editor to supplement information in the main headline is called a
deck.

• Byline: This tells about who wrote the news story and sometimes may also provides information about the
reporter’s speciality eg, ‘Science Reporter’
• Placeline/Dateline: it tells the reader about where the story originated. It gives the location of a story that
occurred outside the paper’s usual coverage area.

• Lead: This is the opening paragraph of a story that condenses the key facts of the story. It gives the most
important information very briefly. The emphasis can be on one of the factors as well depending on the
importance of the same. If some incident happens on a special date, ‘when’ becomes more important than other
aspects.
• Body/Text: It is the actual story. It supplies additional information. It is divided into small paragraphs
and is set into columns. Facts. Every news story includes simple, true statements about what happened.

• Quotes: These retell, verbatim, what someone actually said. Usually, these come from the exact words that
someone said to the reporter in an interview. Sometimes quotations also come from witnesses at the scene,
or experts on a subject. In case, a quote is given special graphic emphasis or is highlighted, it is called a
‘liftout’ quote.
• Attribution: it refers to the source of a quote or source of any information used in the story.
• Photos: It is either shot by the staff photographers or the reporters themselves or purchased from agencies/ wire services.
• Cutline/ Caption: The information about the photo, written as a caption
• Infographic: these are informational graphics that display key facts from the story visually.
• Jumpline: When a long story is continued on another page, editors run this line to tell readers where it is being continued.
• Tagline: Contact information of the reporter that enables the readers to give feedback is called a tagline.