Writing News Stories

What is news?

This might seem like a silly question at first. But if you want to be a news reporter, you first have to be able to define clearly what "news" is. To decide if an event is newsworthy, reporters and editors rely on six traditional tests. The event should pass at least one, and usually several, of these tests:

    Did it happen recently?

    Did it happen nearby?

    Did it involve a conflict?

    Did it involve a famous or important person?

    Does it have consequences for the news source's readers or viewers?

    Does it tell us something interesting about human experience?

These tests, which are pretty vague in themselves, are usually applied with the news source's audience in mind. For example, if the principal of your high school instituted a dress code, it might not make the national news-but it would be enormously important to readers of your school newspaper. In the abstract, the dress code story meets many of the criteria listed above, but different publications define and weigh the criteria differently.