ABSTRACT

This chapter examines variations in audience retention of different categories of news from news broadcasts. We also take a look at the extent to which learning from the news is related to attributes of “newsworthiness” employed by news editors and producers to guide their selection of events to be reported. Most often, news programmes feature a great deal of news about politics, economics, industrial matters, and foreign affairs, otherwise known as “hard” news. On other occasions, the news may be dominated by emotionally arousing items, such as crime, violent civil disturbances, terrorism, or some natural or man-made disaster. On rarer occasions, the main news of the day may be a report of a major sports event, or stories of “human interest” that feature some dramatic, humourous, bizzarre, or curious event.