What is News?
ALRC Public Relations/Advertising Workshop • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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WHAT IS NEWS?
For those of you who attended the first Faith-Based Summit, I shared a definition of news from Reuven Frank, former President, NBC News, who recently passed away. It conveys some important dynamics we need to review:
A DEFINITION OF NEWS
1) News is about change. For something to become or qualify as news, it must happen; it may not merely exist. From time-to-time a continuing situation becomes news because it escaped attention until that time. In such cases, the news is the discovery. What happened is that somebody found out.
2) News is change as seen by an outsider. He may like it or dislike it, but does not consider himself a part of it. He tries to see and talk about what he has seen without reference to whether he likes it or dislikes it. That is the key to professional journalism or journalism as a profession. In this the reporter is never entirely successful. He is a person and not a thing.
All news involves only human beings and their fallibilities -- including the participants, the reporters, the audience.
3) News is change as seen by an outsider on behalf of other outsiders. These are the people the reporter reports for the viewers, the hearers, the readers. When they are participants, they often tend to dislike the report, usually complaining it is incomplete. They do not mean it did not tell them everything they wanted to know, because they already know everything they want to about what happened. They took part in it. They mean it did not tell other people, the outsiders, what the insiders wanted to be known. But an insider in one situation will be an outsider in all others, and in those outside situations the news he gets is about as much as he wants or is interested in. Otherwise we should not stay in business.
4) News is change that is interesting. If it is uninteresting it cannot be news. It cannot be news to anyone who is uninterested because he will not watch or listen or read. Importance does not make news, although if enough of the audience thinks something is important that makes it interesting and therefore news.
