Textbook Chapter 11

Reflections on Textbook Chapter Eleven - Engaging with the Media

This chapter is very similar to that of the framework of a journalist. It highlights the importance of writing good media releases that contain news values (Proximity, Impact, Timeliness, Human Interest, The Unusual, Prominence, Conflict) are worthy enough to appear in the headlines of the newspapers or magazines. I was also able to understand the ideology behind news framing in ensuring that the readers are able to understand the articles' perspectives.

One aspect that I found interesting about this chapter is most journalists tend to slant towards news stories that are on the negative side, especially in the case of politics. Even though statistics show that bad news tend to be the centre of the attraction on the newspapers, it does not mean that good news are not equally important. Look at several cases like the announcement of the hosting country of the world olympics. These are good news that generally reflect on the achievements and success of individual countries. It definitely fulfills the news value of "impact" and so I think journalists should have a balance between both types of news instead of being bias towards the negative side.

I would also like to add on that in writing a media release, it is important to consider various aspects that most gatekeepers are on a lookout for. These include the need to write articles that are exclusive and exciting such that your article would gain a competitive edge since it is different from news that the publications already have. That is probably one of the reasons why we have a set of news value that we could follow to ensure that our articles belong to any of these values.

However, in consideration of the issue of news values, I think it is important that we prioritize certain news values over the other. This is because with the advent of technology and the changing environment, certain news values may no longer be as important as the other. For example, I personally feel that the news value "proximity" may not be relevant because readers would want to know what is happening around the world even though they are not located within close proximity. Therefore, the earthquake in Japan still concerns the citizens in countries like the United States or Australia because of their bilateral relations with each other. It is therefore important that we constantly revise our list of news values such that we are able to report on stories that are more relevant in today's context.