Rule of 8 Vocab

Vocabulary

Use the vocabulary handout to practice the vocabulary for the Rule of
Eight for news writing. There will be a quiz next week on these terms.

You may reword the definitions.

news judgment (Not vocab)

This is the process journalists use to determine
what is newsworthy based on the following
eight factors, also known as news values:
timeliness, proximity, consequence/impact,
prominence/celebrity, conflict,
novelty/oddity/rarity, currency and human
interest.
Some journalists call the news values the Rule of
Eight, because there are eight generally
accepted news values, even though they are
known by different terms in some cases.

who cares method (Not vocab)

“Who cares?” is the question that journalists
must pose to themselves when considering
story coverage.
News values such as timeliness, proximity
and impact are used to determine whether
readers or viewers will be interested.

timeliness

This news value relates to the when of a story.
Especially with hard news, this value
encourages timely coverage of an event.
Think of the phrase, “here today, gone
tomorrow” when considering this news
value.

proximity

This news value takes into consideration the
location in which a news story occurs in
relation to its audience. How physically close
did the story happen to the audience?

consequence

This news value deals with the importance of
a story.
It is also sometimes called “impact,” because
news informs readers and viewers about
events that have an impact on them.

prominence

This news value relates to a story that
includes high profile individuals. Celebrities,
athletes, or politicians are examples.

novelty

Also known as oddity or rarity, this news
value focuses on a story that is unusual and
highly interesting.

conflict

This news value deals with the inclusion of
two or more forces going at each other.

human interest

This news value deals with the emotional
qualities of a story. Does the story evoke an
emotional response?

currency

This news value deals with stories that are of
high interest to the public; usually, these
stories are based on topical, current events.

Sometimes stories have currency simply
because a lot of people are talking about
them and sharing them in social media, not
because of any other reason. (Think Kanye
and Taylor Swift)