It’s said the words in the term “news” are derived from the four compass directions as indicated here: North, South, East and West. In the United States, these directions are mostly used to refer to the media. However, the actual term is much broader.
In the news, a news story may be about anything. It may be about an earthquake in California or an election in Texas or a crime in Connecticut. News is normally defined by newspapers as newsworthy events that have general importance to the public at large. There are several important values to keep in mind when evaluating news stories.
Readers look for local news and are particular about what they want to know about local events and situations. Readers will evaluate the news story from three perspectives: personal impact, societal impact and factual impact. Personal impact may impact readers emotionally by evoking a certain emotion, such as love or sadness.
Readers also evaluate news value based on whether the story involves people in different cultures or societies. For instance, if an earthquake were to strike a region in which people are native of different cultures and speaking different languages, this would have a different impact on different readers than if the earthquake were to strike regions where people speak the same language and are native of only one culture. Readers also evaluate the news value based on whether the story involves a problem or issue that affects the people in different societies and regions. For instance, if an issue is prevalent in one region but not in another, readers will be more likely to pay attention to and be interested in that region.
News readers also evaluate hard news stories differently than soft news stories. In addition to being quantitative in nature, hard news stories involve a human interest angle that goes beyond the quantitative values of economic, health and stock performance. As with soft news, hard news stories can be about breaking news, controversial issues, controversial stories or even celebrity news. Hard news stories are not evaluated based on business value or economic impact. Rather, readers evaluate a hard news story based on the human interest perspective it conveys and the consequences of the news to the people who are concerned with the content.
News readers evaluate the importance of various stories based on the emotional impact it has on them and on the personal impact it may make on others. News readers are particularly sensitive to news that makes them feel bad about themselves such as when young people lose their sense of right and wrong, people lose their jobs, or when they see other people getting injured. When a person feels bad, it is natural to try to find ways to make up for that feeling and to try to make the situation better. This is why it is so important to write unique and personally impactful articles that convey the correct message to your target audience.
