ABSTRACT
In the world of the media the consumer is king. Greater choice and greater ease of making that choice have taken their toll on audience tolerance. Selection and comparison between broadcast news is now as easy as pressing a button. More to the point, you can get the news you want, when you want it from the Internet, mobile phone and PDA. So more than ever the success of a programme depends on the producer’s ability to select the stories the audience wants to see or hear – ‘news sense’ – and their skill in assembling those items into a popular programme. The producer’s first task is to match the coverage to the style and length of
the programme. A 2-minute headline summary may cover the current top eight stories, providing a sketched outline of events. A half-hour programme may go over substantially the same ground, but in more depth. What newsgatherers regard as news is usually a matter of considering what’s
of importance, significance, relevance, immediacy, proximity, human interest and novelty.
