Are all News Created Equal? How Event Types Change News Emphasis and Interact with News Factors

This study explores how event types change the way news factors shape journalistic news emphasis. News value theory has been criticized for its detachedness from the reality of news work as experienced by practitioners. This inside view emphasizes how journalists start with categorizing news, which determines the pathways and routines for further examination and development of the story’s potential. Our study integrates both views: (1) news factors matter for news emphasis decisions, but (2) the significance of the different news factors varies depending on how journalists categorize the potential news story’s (PNS) main event. Analyzing 34,325 released news stories (RNS), we identified 12 event types that trigger these news stories. As a key finding, not all types of news events are treated equally: Event types were found to generally differ in newsworthiness. Furthermore, the categorization into event types shifted the way newsworthiness was evaluated (moderation effect). This integrated view offers a more nuanced understanding of news value theory in news work. Revising news value theory accordingly may prove fruitful in analyzing the spread of news in complex information environments.