What exactly is Newsworthy?

For a story to be considered newsworthy it usually has to contain several of the following qualities, impact, prominence, unusualness, currency, conflict, timeliness, proximity, affinity and human interest. Most stories you read in a newspaper or watch on television contain at least one of the qualities or it wouldn't even be considered newsworthy. I chose three stories from The Baltimore Sun that contained the newsworthy qualities. 

The first story I chose is Fire Destroys City Playground. This story is considered newsworthy for many reasons the first being impact. This playground was used daily by hundreds of children and now there lives have been impacted by this fire that destroyed a place where they could go and have fun. Another reason why this story was story is newsworthy would be timeliness. Stories that are recent and new are more newsworthy than those that happened a few weeks ago. This story was just published this afternoon and the fire occurred only hours before. Proximity is the physical nearness of the event. This fire was at Memorial Stadium which is right in Baltimore only minutes from Towson. 

The second story I chose is Md. Faces Revenue Shortfall of $432 Million. This story definitely is newsworthy. It impacts the lives of all Marylanders because we all pay taxes and this story is saying taxes could go up or projects that were supposed to happen this year around Maryland might be delayed because of the budget. This story also displays conflict, many people are at odds with the Governor and other officials because of this terrible information that was released. People all over are asking why and how did this happen, when this happens it causes conflicts between the government and the people. 

The last story I chose is an entertainment story and some people might consider it pointless and not newsworthy but according the the definition of newsworthy it is. Officer Testifies that rapper Lil' Wayne had gun on bus, is a story is a about a celebrity that is prominent. Prominence is one of the newsworthy values because naturally people are interested in stories that contain celebrity figures, we want to watch the prominent figures because as a society we focus on being like celebrities and knowing every move they make. This story also has a since of unusualness because not everyday does a rapper bring a gun on a bus.