Look at a news website, watch a television news show or scroll through your news feed and you will see a plethora of content. How did all that end up on the platform? How was it selected? Deciding on what stories to run takes work. 

Journalists, public relations practitioners and anyone in communications have to figure out which stories are worth reporting and publishing. That is not always an easy task. Even experienced journalists debate which stories are the best for their publication. 

The good news for journalism students is deciding what is news, or news judgment as it’s commonly called, is a skill that can be learned. In this chapter, we will introduce you to criteria you can use for determining which stories are newsworthy. 

•  Learn how to evaluate what is news.

• Understand where to find stories.

• Understand the nature of news.

In general, there are two categories of news: hard and soft. 

Hard news refers to breaking stories (segment of Interstate 5 shut during rush hour because of a major crash blocking all the lanes) and news about serious, timely or hard-hitting topics (California State University raises tuition or San Clemente beaches closed all week because of a water contamination). 

Soft news focuses on lifestyle, entertainment, culture and arts, human-interest stories (fourth-grader wins National Spelling Bee or elderly couple celebrates 90th wedding anniversary). 

It is easy to spot a hard news story from the soft news. A Hollywood celebrity getting married – again – is not hard news. It might be for a website that covers entertainment. But if that same celebrity gets arrested for a DUI that resulted in the passenger suffering injuries in a two-car crash then that becomes news. 

Soft news can even be about sports. The Los Angeles Rams not playing well in a particular season is no longer hard news outside the topic of sports. Is the Rams winning a Super Bowl hard news? It sure is! 

The public generally does not see much difference between hard and soft news. But they think they know the difference between good news and bad news. And they love to criticize the news media for it. 

Is there a difference between good news and bad news? 

The public believes that bad news consists of crime, cruelty to animals and children, tragedy and disaster. Good news is just the opposite. The public asks why does the news media produce so much “bad news.” It’s not hard to see why, especially if they regularly consume television news shows. 

“Baby Found in Dumpster” is a cliché headline but has often led the nightly news shows. Now it’s more of a police chase bad guys fleeing in a car and careening through a residential neighborhood or on the freeway.  Journalists described that kind of hard news with the slogan, “If it bleeds, it leads.”

But journalists are aware that a mix of stories – hard and soft – is essential to best serving their audience. It’s essential to the business model. 

Yet journalists, and anyone in the communications business who has to regularly produce content, use “good” and “bad.” But not in the way you think. A “good news day” is when the editors have a variety of stories (which includes photos, videos or illustrations) to choose from and post on the website or publish in the print product (newspaper or magazine).