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Understanding News Values To Make Compelling Content
With the volume of content published on the internet vying for readers’ attention increasing every day, the demand for compelling content is at an all-time high.
So, how can we create appealing content to encourage target audiences to engage with your organisation’s communications and messaging?
When I’m looking at creating attention-grabbing content, I look back at my previous experience as a journalist and apply what the journalism industry calls “news values” to guide my content writing.
News values are criteria journalists use to determine the ‘newsworthiness’ of a story and whether it’s worth publishing. This is something that can be adopted within your own organisation’s content writing.
What are news values?
There are eight news values journalists use to determine a story’s newsworthiness and whether it’s worth publishing or not.
A story only needs to have one news value to be considered newsworthy, but most stories contain two or more.
These news values include the following: human interest, impact, conflict, currency, unusual, proximity, prominence, and timeliness.
Here’s a quick summary of the news values.
- Human Interest
People are interested in people. Human interest stories stir readers’ emotions, conveying the shared human experience we all have. - Impact
The more people involved in or affected by an event, the more compelling a story will be. Impact can cover a range of stories from once-in-a-lifetime natural disasters affecting hundreds of people right down to a rise in interest rates affecting millions. - Conflict
Conflict is when a story contains a disagreement between two or more parties and can often be dramatic. Stories involving disputes tend to be more compelling with readers wanting to know the latest drama. Conflict stories can involve political disagreements, legal proceedings, work disputes and more. - Currency
Stories related to the current topics discussed by the public tend to be more newsworthy. These stories include the latest fads, significant anniversaries, and the current public discourse. Examples of stories with currency include major national holidays, fundraising events, and major sporting events. - Unusual
The Unusual is a rare news value where the story is about something strange or odd. These stories are entertaining as they deviate from what is expected. An example of this news value would be the story of the Italian man trying to dodge COVID vaccination with a fake arm in 2021. - Prominence
Having well-known people in a story gives the narrative prominence. Readers are always interested in the actions of celebrities, but prominence doesn’t necessarily have to be famous people, it can also extend through to prominent companies as well. - Proximity
Readers are more interested in the happening in their immediate surroundings and proximity is the news value regarding the vicinity the story took place. The scope of the story also plays into the proximity of readers; for example, a story about police searching for a suspect regarding a break-and-enter in Toowoomba would not be relevant to readers in Sydney, but if police believe the alleged to have fled to Sydney, then it becomes newsworthy to that city as well. - Timeliness
Timeliness is the news value of how immediate the event occurred or soon an upcoming event will be. This element can cover new releases, the latest research, current developments and more. This is one of the main news values you will see in modern news editorials because readers want to be up to date with the latest information.
Using news values to develop content
A story doesn’t need to satisfy every news value to be compelling content, it could have one or two to be relevant to readers.
Understanding news values can allow organisations to better plan and create content that aligns with their identity while also being more compelling for their target audience.
So, how do we do this?
Let’s use a hypothetical situation where CoBright has helped the well-known but fictional charity, the Darling Downs Soup Kitchen with an online fundraising platform that has seen a 16% increase in donations over a business year quarter which allows them to feed an additional 170 people in Toowoomba per year.
This would be a great result for any company, and this would be a story worth sharing.
Looking at the above example, what are the news values at play with this story? Prominence with our fictional charity Darling Downs Soup Kitchen. Impact is another news value with an additional 170 people being helped, and Proximity for Toowoomba-based readers.
With these news values, let’s create a narrative hook which can be used for a media release, Facebook post, and corporate EMS messaging:
Media Release intro:
“Since launching their new online fundraising platform, prominent Toowoomba charity Darling Downs Soup Kitchen has been able to increase their operating capabilities to feed an additional 150 people, just in time as more families begin to feel the economic pinch.”
“CoBright” Facebook post:
“It’s been over four months since we had the pleasure of working with Darling Downs Soup Kitchen to develop their new e-Donate online fundraising platform. Since launching the platform, Darling Downs Soup Kitchen has seen a 16% increase in their fundraising income, allowing them to feed more than ever before.”
If we analyse the above examples, I used Prominence with the Darling Downs Soup Kitchen, Proximity by mentioning Toowoomba, and Impact with the numerical figures in both pieces. Using the news values of the story, I have created a narrative hook to encourage readers to read more about the charity, its new fundraising platform or how CoBright helped them achieve such a great result.
Go forth and write your story
Now that you know what the news values are, you will be able to look at your own stories and make compelling content for your website, social media pages or other communications.
As you practise identifying the news values of the latest stories and events, you will be able to identify the ones that are worth sharing and the ones that will just remain good memories.
I encourage you to use the above news values to create your own compelling content for your audience or you could contact CoBright and talk to one of our content specialists about how we can help you tell your story.
