News Values

The news programme I decided to watch was ITV news at six, on April 12th.

The major news headline was the death of Margaret Thatcher, which has been all news programmes. I believe the news values in this story are threshold as Margaret Thatcher is extremely well known in England and many other parts of the world and her death is a big story. Another news value used in this story is meaningfulness. Thatcher was the first female prime minister and whether it's good of bad, she will mean something to the audience. I feel continuity is also a news value in this as the news will follow her funeral and the grieving family. There is also conflict in this story as many people disliked Thatcher and her ways, so are causing protests. I think this story came from other emergency services.

Following this was the story of  John Kerry, an American Politician visiting South Korea to try and settle North Korea. The news values in this story are elite nations. Although there may be other stories going on in different countries, America is supposedly more important than the rest. Once again threshold is a news value in this as North Korea threatening to send missiles to America is extremely big news. Negativity is another news value as bad news is good news. I think this story may have come from government departments in America.

A more light hearted story was after this, which was that apps on smartphones and tablets fooling kids to spending thousands on free games. I'd say this contains personalisation as there was an example of this. A boy of nine spent over a thousand pounds on one game. This story may have come from social media then more investigations have been carried out.

The next story was the proposal for cap on benefits. A lot of people in England do rely on benefits to help them in life so I think meaningfulness is one of the main news values in this; it means something to the audience. Another one is continuity as the news will follow the developments on the proposal. As it may take a while to pass, I think frequency is a news value in this story because of the longer term, slower moving story. Once again negativity is a part in this as bad news in good news. I think the source for this story came from Parliament and Councils as they deal with these situations.

The news once again becomes light hearted as the programme ends. The last two stories actually link. The penultimate story was the big losses for gardeners due to the recent cold weather. I think unambiguity is the news value in this as it is pretty simple. I think this story came from companies.
The last news story was ITV investigating the weather in the artic is due to the cold weather here in the UK. Once again this is unambiguity.  I'm not sure where this story has come from.