What Makes Something Newsworthy? (ARCHIVED)

Does your newsroom react on gut instinct to decide what to cover? Do you feel like you’re doing the same stories everyone else is doing when you try to localize major regional and national stories? There’s a better way to make stories meaningful and relevant for local readers. The elements of news are timeless, because human nature is timeless. In this webinar, you learn how to leverage the basic elements of news to make faster, better decisions about what to cover and how to do it. And we’ll also show how journalists contribute to perceptions of bias and sensationalism when they misinterpret why something is newsworthy. For those who may have studied this in journalism school, it’s a great refresher. For others, you discover new tools to make the most effective use of your resources.

Dennis Hetzel, has been an award-winning reporter, editor and publisher at newspapers in multiple states for Lee Enterprises, Gannett and other media companies. He also taught journalism at Penn State and Temple universities and retired in 2019 as executive director of the Ohio News Media Association where he gained a national reputation for his work on open government issues.