Critical analysis of television top stories’ newsworthiness: the case of south radio and television

Abstract

The general objective of the study is to analyze the selection process of television top stories in relation to the implementation of newsworthiness in South Radio and Television Agency. For this specific study news, value (news worthiness elements) principles are utilized as a road map to travel through the entire analysis of chapters. The necessary data for the study is collected using questionnaire, structured and semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions and news videos. The collected data has been analyzed using both quantitative and qualitative data analysis. To analyze the quantitative data, descriptive statics, such as mean, standard deviation and frequencies are used. A statistical package for Social Science (SPSS) version 20.0 was used to analyze the descriptive statics. On the one hand, the qualitative data collected are described along with the quantitative data. On the other hand, they are interpreted based on the result derived from data presentation and analysis. The study shows that the limitations of applying the same criteria of top news selection and regular news stories production, which means there is no news worthiness criteria for selecting Television top stories. Moreover, television top stories selection of SRTA have not been properly including news elements like human interest news, timeliness, impact, proximity, conflict, unusual (novelty), currency and prominence news as part of news worthiness. Further, the study indicates that limitation of considering news elements on top news stories‟ writing; like word choice, coherence, cohesiveness and sentence construction in order to show cause and effect was observed including balancing news coverage. In addition, the limitation of newsworthiness implementation has been shown on events rather than planning. Moreover, to determine timeliness and currency of the news, lack of modern digital communication (sending and receiving files through online) and the dalliance in providing of national and international level news are the most influential factors. Finally, the conclusion and recommendations are showing the drawbacks of the newsworthiness implementation and the measure that ought to be taken by the responsible body.