When was the last time you read about a news story? If it is just one or two articles a week, it’s too much in-your-face and not newsworthy. Too much news means that it is not current enough to be read by anyone who is looking for the Latest Important News. Too much news is not current news. So where did the last news you read wind up?
In some cases, news can wind up in a completely different venue than the one it was intended to end up in. A front-page news story about a school shooter making national news changes people’s perceptions of that person, their mental health and the potential risk to others. This makes news more about human activity and what could happen rather than about the human activity or problem itself. A good example of this is the shooting at a Planned Parenthood in Colorado. This news story changed the public perception of safety and how citizens feel after a series of violent attacks on abortion clinics over the summer.
A different kind of news story that changes the public’s perception of an event is a news story that chronicles a single act of violence against a specific person, group, or demographic. In this case, the news reporters spend significant amount of time talking to the victims and witnesses of the event. Sometimes, they spend as much time talking to members of the victim’s family. They do everything they can to describe the crime and what it means to the victims, their families and to society. This kind of news story makes a difference.
A news story can also have a different mental impact on the reader or viewer if it is delivered in a way that is specific to the reader. One example of this is a local news story that features the story of a local child who was severely beaten by another young boy for the slightest reason. The way the news reporters chose to deliver the details of this story made a huge difference. If the news reporters had mentioned the boy’s parents’ reaction when they saw how their child was abused, the way the story ended could have been quite different.
The fourth factor that makes news stories different is their use since the publication date. News events are generally described in the newspaper or magazine with reference to the date they happened. This dates usually coincide with the political calendar, so they are most often released close to major national elections. Since there is no way for news readers to confirm the dates before their publication date, this element makes them even more important since the use of such information greatly affects the election results.
The fifth factor that makes an event newsworthy is its timeliness. Since most news events are covered within a few minutes, they must have a high value on the importance scale. It has to be of great significance and it must provide the information fast enough for readers to find the need to know it. When antedating an event, it is imperative for news to be timely. This is because the public can only learn what is happening after the event happens and not before it happens.