What is Newsworthy?

Overview

Journalists often pitch story ideas inspired by events occurring in their communities or by issues they care about, but they also turn to the Internet and social media to find out what topics are engaging a large audience. This lesson will challenge students to think about the term “newsworthy” and what makes a story worthy of being reported. Click on the Activities Tab to complete the lesson.

Central Questions

What is news?
How do journalists decide what stories are newsworthy and worth reporting?
How do the characteristics of newsworthiness mean different things to different audiences?

Learning Outcomes

Help students understand the concept of audience
Help students determine what makes a topic engaging and valuable to an audience
Help students understand how news organizations determine newsworthiness and choose stories
Help students consider the variability of newsworthiness based on a variety of factors, including geography
Career readiness: critical thinking and clear communication to different audiences

When Would You Use This Lesson?

Media Literacy unit to understand how journalists choose stories to pursue
Help students find newsworthy stories for their local school news program
To help students strengthen story ideas and write stronger pitches
As a discussion about decision-making in the news media

Media Literacy Connections

Students will learn how journalists consider story ideas and start to understand the role of journalists in communities. Thinking through the idea of newsworthiness will help students dissect their information consumption habits and critique the role of audiences for journalists creating media that is supposed to inform.

Civics Connections

Journalists have to make tough decisions about what stories to cover. Understanding newsworthiness will help students uncover what important civic issues need to be reported, and the issues that are not being addressed in news media landscapes.

Introduction

Explain to students that every day, journalists around the world are challenged with identifying what is newsworthy and what isn’t. While journalists strive to be fair and accurate, their life experiences shape the decisions they make.

Reporters and editors use certain guidelines to determine whether or not information is worth being shared. Since the advent of the Internet and smartphones, journalists also use social media to see what news people are engaging with.

Main Activity

How do journalists make their stories newsworthy?

Virtual Option: Use Zoom, Google Meet, or other video conferencing platforms to complete the activity

STEP 1: Divide the class into groups of 3-4 students. Set a 5-minute limit to each group discussion and then ask students to share out to the whole class.

Ask students: Where do you discover news?
Do you try to get varied perspectives on an issue or event? If yes, how?
What’s the last story you were talking about with friends and family? Where did you find information about the story?

STEP 2: Determine if there is a common story that students mentioned

Explain that Google Trends is one way to see what a lot of people online are talking about and sharing. Have students explore Google Trends and search for a specific topic or term from the common story to see how much it’s been searched by people online.
Next, have students point out things they notice - is that story highly searched across the United States or just a specific region? Are there other similar trending stories?
Ask students: why do they think that story is trending? What makes the story relevant and newsworthy?

STEP 3: Pass out the Newsworthiness Chart

Have students read through each definition from the chart and discuss how each section makes a story newsworthy.
Now shift to how journalists find their stories. Explain that the role of a journalist is to be out and about in the community, going to events, listening to people, and meeting them. Journalists get to know people connected to a story they are interested in (these people are commonly referred to as “sources”). If that person does not want to help, journalists might ask if they know someone else who might be good to talk to.
Ask students: If you were a journalist searching for a newsworthy story about your school, what would you do. Suggest going to a sporting event, a school board meeting, a rally, etc.
Ask students: What is a local news source? Share 2-4 local news websites - traditional news outlets and others (such as Patch, Facebook group, local NPR station, etc). Explain that like finding newsworthy stories about your school, local news provides information that is relevant to the community they serve and report in and their interests.

Now You Try

Virtual Option: Use this Padlet template to complete the worksheet in a more interactive way. Be sure to click the remake icon to make a copy of our template. If you are using Padlet for the first time, you can create a free account here: https://padlet.com.

STEP 1: Divide into pairs to complete this worksheet.

STEP 2: Instruct each group of students to identify their local news organizations. Are they aware of them? Then, instruct students to find two news stories they find interesting: one local and one national. This could be from a local news site, a social media platform, or a national news site like PBS NewsHour, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Google News, or Apple News. They will use this story to complete the worksheet.

STEP 3: Bringing the class back together, select students to share their news story and report their findings on what makes this story newsworthy.

BONUS: Ask students to identify the basic elements of information gathering to determine if the news story has them all: WHO, WHAT, WHERE, WHEN, WHY

Extension Activity

If your students are working towards producing a story or news package, have them refine their story idea and pitch sheet using the worksheet to check that their story is Newsworthy.

Reflection

Ask students to reflect on the characteristics that make a story newsworthy. Why do they think journalists use those specific characteristics? What are some others? How do you understand news differently after this activity?

Other: What is the difference between a reporter who works for a local news organization, versus a journalist who works at a national news organization?

Exit Ticket

Self-reflection is important. Distribute copies of the Exit Ticket for What is Newsworthy.

ABOUT THIS RESOURCE

This resource is part of the Global Education Toolkit and was made possible with support from the Longview Foundation.

Resources

Timeliness

Immediate, current information and events are newsworthy because they have just recently occurred. It’s news because it’s “new.”

Proximity

Local information and events are newsworthy because they affect the people in our community and region. We care more about things that happen “close to home.”

Solutions

Investigating and explaining, in a critical and clear-eyed way, how people try to solve widely shared problems. Solutions journalism focuses on responses to problems.

Source: Solutions Journalism

Human Interest

People are interested in other people. Everyone has something to celebrate and something to complain about. We like unusual stories of people who accomplish amazing feats or handle a life crisis because we can identify with them.

Relevance

People are attracted to information that helps them make good decisions. If you like music, you find musician interviews relevant. If you’re looking for a job, the business news is relevant. We need to depend on relevant information that helps us make decisions.

Story Angle

In news, it’s a story’s point or theme. It's the lens through which the producer or writer filters the information they have gathered and focuses it to make it meaningful to viewers or readers.

Source: ThoughCo.

Audience

The people who read, watch and consume news. Often, journalists think about audience and newsworthiness in similar ways. How will the news story serve their local or national audience? Who am I writing the story for and why?

Conflict

When violence strikes or when people argue about actions, events, ideas or policies, we care. Conflict and controversy attract our attention by highlighting problems or differences within the community or between groups. Sometimes conflict can be subtle and manifest as tension.

Digital Citizenship

Students recognize the responsibilities and opportunities for positively contributing to their digital communities. (ISTE)

Empowered Learner

Students leverage technology to take an active role in choosing, achieving and demonstrating competency in their learning goals, informed by the learning sciences. (ISTE)

Language - Vocabulary Acquisition and Use

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.9-10.4: Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases based on grades 9–10 reading and content, choosing flexibly from a range of strategies.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.9-10.5: Demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships, and nuances in word meanings.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.9-10.6: Acquire and use accurate general academic and domain-specific words and phrases, sufficient for reading, writing, speaking, and listening at the college and career readiness level; demonstrate independence in gathering vocabulary knowledge when considering a word or phrase important to comprehension or expression.

Global Collaborator

Students use digital tools to broaden their perspectives and enrich their learning by collaborating with others and working effectively in teams locally and globally. (ISTE)

Demonstrate writing processes used in journalism and broadcasting media.

CCTC AR-JB 2.1: Demonstrate how to cultivate sources for stories.
CCTC AR-JB 2.2: Demonstrate how to obtain information to use in writing a story.
CCTC AR-JB 2.3: Develop written stories for print and broadcast.
CCTC AR-JB 2.4: Demonstrate how photographs support the development of stories.
CCTC AR-JB 2.5: Employ knowledge of the similarities and differences among editorial, feature, and news writing styles.
CCTC AR-JB 2.6: Define the terminology associated with journalism and broadcasting.
CCTC AR-JB 2.7: Develop a complete radio project.
CCTC AR-JB 2.8: Develop a complete television project.

Analyze the legal and ethical responsibilities required in the arts, audio/visual technology and communications workplace.

CCTC AR 4.1: Analyze the legal and ethical responsibilities required in the arts, audio/visual technology and communications workplace.

Reading - Integration of Knowledge and Ideas

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.9-10.7: Analyze the representation of a subject or a key scene in two different artistic mediums, including what is emphasized or absent in each treatment (e.g., Auden’s “Musée des Beaux Arts” and Breughel’s Landscape with the Fall of Icarus).
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.9-10. 8 (Not applicable to literature)
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.9-10.9: Analyze how an author draws on and transforms source material in a specific work (e.g., how Shakespeare treats a theme or topic from Ovid or the Bible or how a later author draws on a play by Shakespeare).

Describe the diversity and variety of functions within the Journalism & Broadcasting Career Pathway.

CCTC AR-JB 1.1: Summarize the roles of journalism and broadcasting in society today using knowledge and history of journalism and broadcasting.
CCTC AR-JB 1.2: Distinguish between different forms of media and their specific applications.
CCTC AR-JB 1.3: Explain the value of having a broad general knowledge base and how awareness of cultural, regional, and diversity issues adds to a journalism and broadcasting career.
CCTC AR-JB 1.4: Analyze the business and economic factors that influence programming, content, and distribution.
CCTC AR-JB 1.5: Demonstrate professional conduct that follows a professional code of ethics.

Speaking and Listening - Presentation of Knowledge and Ideas

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.9-10.4: Present information, findings, and supporting evidence clearly, concisely, and logically such that listeners can follow the line of reasoning and the organization, development, substance, and style are appropriate to purpose, audience, and task.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.9-10.5: Make strategic use of digital media (e.g., textual, graphical, audio, visual, and interactive elements) in presentations to enhance understanding of findings, reasoning, and evidence and to add interest.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.9-10.6: Adapt speech to a variety of contexts and tasks, demonstrating command of formal English when indicated or appropriate.

Speaking and Listening - Comprehension and Collaboration

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.9-10.1: Initiate and participate effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grades 9–10 topics, texts, and issues, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.9-10.2: Integrate multiple sources of information presented in diverse media or formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively, orally) evaluating the credibility and accuracy of each source.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.9-10.3: Evaluate a speaker’s point of view, reasoning, and use of evidence and rhetoric, identifying any fallacious reasoning or exaggerated or distorted evidence.

Writing - Research to Build and Present Knowledge

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.9-10.7: Conduct short as well as more sustained research projects to answer a question (including a self-generated question) or solve a problem; narrow or broaden the inquiry when appropriate; synthesize multiple sources on the subject, demonstrating understanding of the subject under investigation.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.9-10.8: Gather relevant information from multiple authoritative print and digital sources, using advanced searches effectively; assess the usefulness of each source in answering the research question; integrate information into the text selectively to maintain the flow of ideas, avoiding plagiarism and following a standard format for citation.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.9-10.9: Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.

Writing - Production and Distribution of Writing

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.9-10.4: Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience. (Grade-specific expectations for writing types are defined in standards 1–3 above.)
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.9-10.5: Develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach, focusing on addressing what is most significant for a specific purpose and audience. (Editing for conventions should demonstrate command of Language standards 1–3 up to and including grades 9–10.)
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.9-10.6: Use technology, including the Internet, to produce, publish, and update individual or shared writing products, taking advantage of technology’s capacity to link to other information and to display information flexibly and dynamically.

Writing - Text Types and Purposes

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.9-10.1: Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts, using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.9-10.2: Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas, concepts, and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.9-10.3: Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, well-chosen details, and well-structured event sequences.

Reading - Key Ideas and Details

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.9-10.1: Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.9-10.2: Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze in detail its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.L.9-10.3: Analyze how complex characters (e.g., those with multiple or conflicting motivations) develop over the course of a text, interact with other characters, and advance the plot or develop the theme.

Lesson | 50 Minutes