Prior to the emergence of the new media, a major aspect that unified journalism practice is how certain stories are constructed and presented by the newspapers or news organisations the public consumes as the news (Obalanlege, 2015: 64). Hall, Critcher, Jefferson, Clarke and Roberts (1978:
53), had described the news as, “an end product of a complex process that begins with a system of sorting and selecting of events and topics according to a socially constructed set of categories”. Barbie Zelizer (2004: 24), in her
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book ‘Taking Journalism seriously’, defines news as “new information about a subject that is shared with some portion of the public that reflects on whatever is on culture or society’s mind”. That news is what the editors said it is, what the public want to read, or as what will sell papers and what newspaperman choose to make it. Zelizer further conceptualised news as a series of activities including, newsgathering, production, archival, copy reading and feature writing, concludes that a popular trait to define news is to admit their partiality (Zelizer, 2004: 24 - 26).
The concept of news making is closely linked to the discourse of “Encoding and Decoding” of media materials (or messages), which according to Stuart Hall (1993), plays a fundamental role in communication exchange. Hall argued that encoded meanings “have the institution, political, and ideological order imprinted in them and are liable in buttressing dominant or hegemonic ideas, of which, journalists, editors and sub-editors are recognised as encoders” (Hall,1993: 93). Hall’s articulation of the concept helps us to understand the importance of encoded media messages.
News as a media message consists of different genres, which according to Allen Bell (1991: 3), everything other than advertisement, particularly in a newspaper, is called ‘editorial’. A typical newspaper contains articles of hard news, service information, opinion, special-topic news and headlines. Hard news consists of reports on accidents, crimes, announcements and other programmes that are considered newsworthy. In general, hard news is the staple product of a newspaper.
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Service information is another aspect of editorial that covers sports and business pages. Opinion is a statement that is written by newspaper leaders or editorials, adding their views on a particular topic. Special-topics news contains sports, racing, arts and computers. While headlines are simply crossheads or subheading, by-lines and photo captions.
The basic distinction on news stories that are covered in a newspaper are drawn from hard news and features. Deducing from the perspective of feature articles, these are stories often referred to as soft news. Features are presented as longer articles that covers immediate events (Bell, 1991: 4).
These types of news provide background or editorialised (by-lined), with the writer’s name. In this type of news story, journalists are giving more liberty to choose a writing style. Some features are also written by the public (non- journalist).
The track of news story in small newsrooms usually involve a news source, chief reporter, journalist, subeditor, editor and receiving media. While in larger news institutions newsrooms, the flow is more complex. The roles in producing news in large newsrooms encompasses principal -professional news institution, author - journalist, editor overseer, copy editor or interpreter, and animator – transmitter (news reader) or technician (printer). In addition to these roles, there are sub roles, such as, newsroom position and language function (Bell, 1991: 6). Furthermore, there is an element of international news. The path of producing international news adds more complexity in large newsrooms. It involves agency regional bureau, agency central bureau, national agency that are in the receiving country and local news outlet. In this type of news, there are copy editors who are entrusted with the right to
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change the language at each stage. It is for this reason that Bell (1991: 6) postulates, “the flow of international news is massive and complicated”.
Other assumptions on news suggest that the concept is an individual or as an organisational product. Hamilton (2007: 7) explains this idea within the context of ‘news economy’, states that news varies in many countries.
According to Hamilton, news-making depends on three important elements in news markets. It deals with the motivation of media outlet owners, the availability of information dissemination technologies, and the property rights that govern how information is created and distributed. In this line of thinking, for any news media institution, the type of stories they focus on depends on the enthusiasm readers express for information, which essentially determine how economics shape news decision of that media outlet (Hamilton, 2007).
The concept of news, in terms of production process, has always been premised on the traditional ‘5Ws’ journalism ethics (that is, Who, What, Where, When and Why) when crafting stories. However, a different set of questions may be pursued by reporters in which stories that actually made it to the newsstands or news marketplace we read as news can be determined (Hamilton, 2007: 8). They are, (1) who cares about a particular piece of information? (2) What are they willing to pay to find it, or what are others willing to pay to reach them? (3) Where can media outlets or advertisers reach these people? (4) When is it profitable to provide the information? and, (5) Why is this profitable? This new perspective towards news-making demonstrates the extent to which news making, once regarded as a public service or in the interest of the public, has become an individual or organisational products. The particulars of this argument therefore
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expounded that news is now a product of market forces (Hamilton 2007: 8).
This news products are often influenced by consumers interest or expression for a particular information. In that case, it can be influenced by the price and quality of the goods. It is also important to note that the public desire news for its entertainment value, or as a pleasure. Also, readers are able to garner more knowledge, which are crafted by news reporters (Hamilton 2007).
On the notion of journalism, Bell (1991: 147), refers to journalists as professional storytellers in the contemporary world. The responsibilities of a journalist deal with the collecting, collating and reporting of news. It also involves a routine selection of events that encompasses the basis of their story-telling ability, as well as, the strings of decisions they have to ponder over in order to generate news stories.
The arrangement of headlines, image, text and illustration among other journalism practices that are produced in a factory-like process shaped by technology, are some of the characteristics that a journalist must possess.
For this reason, Hodkinson (2011), clearly states that, the processes involved in news-making are taxing because, journalists are expected to filter excessive amounts of events and issues relating to a particular day into a bulletin or newspaper. Hodkinson, furthermore, identified two sequential stages that are applicable in news-making to include, “(1) the selection of events and issues on which to base the news stories and, (2) subsequent construction of such stories” (Hodkinson, 2011: 128 - 129).
The idea of what makes a story newsworthy enough to form part of the news selection that is published in the newspaper, in addition, revolves around the
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differences of ‘priority’ and ‘emphasis’ between news providers especially, the stories they cover daily (Obalanlege, 2015: 69). The perception on priority and emphasis portrays the importance of news routines in journalism practices. In other words, it is a repeated practices and forms that are seen as an easier mean a journalist is able to accomplish assigned tasks, and in the process strive to meet production constraints - collecting, collation, printing and distribution (Obalanlege, 2015: 69). These routines are simply a manageable ploy that enable journalists to accomplish news making tasks.
Mostly notably, when handling an increasingly vast amount of information that must be converted to news (see Shoemaker and Reese, 2013).
Owing to the changing media landscape, news production and consumption have been transformed. Some of the processes that are applied in news- making seem to have been reformed. It is no longer the same as they were prior to the emergence of the new media in the twenty-first century (Alejandro, 2010: 5). For instance, in pre-satellite news, people waited for newspaper delivery at the doorsteps. This practice is increasingly becoming historical due to the transfigurations taking place in the media environment. The news production and the series of activities required, for instance, those offering long-form news analysis are costly, are not entirely financed by the cover prices charged for a newspaper. Rather, news production is mostly covered by the revenue generated from advertising (Chandrasekhar, 2013: 29). This conclusion was drawn from the crises confronting the current revenue model triggered by the evolving new media platforms. It is also interesting to acknowledge that news-making practices have been transformed in a manner that has become more personalised, more service-oriented and less institutional. Quinn (2005: 29-30), describes it as a type of media
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convergence. This now remains the defining paradox confronting the print media institutions as a consequence of the technological meteor.