Grimes 2nd Law - The News Formula

Kyle Wintersteen at Guns & Ammo on October 28, 2013 has a interesting article about why the media covers some violent crimes (13 Navy Yard killings vs. 13 Chicago school yard woundings) and not others.  Is it because they are biased, lazy, or affected by other factors.  In the article he refers to media Prof. Charlotte Grimes, Knight Chair in Political Reporting at Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. She has developed a formula that relates many factors common to news items and provides "a common sense explanation of what the media considers newsworthy, as well as a sobering look at today’s fragmented information world."

Read more: http://www.gunsandammo.com/2013/10/28/shooting-national-tragedy/#ixzz2jKMmUpYO

See Prof. Grimes here:  charlotte-grimes

Grimes' Second Law:  The News Formula

N / Di(prx) x I x Du x T x R x P x Cf/Cr x Ch x Hypcrsy x U x Factor X = News Value

Variables:

N = number of people affected by event, issue, policy

Di = the physical distance those people are from the news organization's home community—Baghdad and Syracuse, for example. Also considered the PRX or PROXIMITY to the news organization’s home community.  Or the emotional or psychological distance between the subject and the reader, say, a welfare mother and an affluent suburbanite. The closer the event or person is, geographically or emotionally, the higher the news value. 

I = the intensity of the effect, such as death being a more intense effect than injury, or injury more intense than damage to property

Du = the duration of the effect, such as the longer-lasting effect of an atomic bomb or tsunami, compared to a temporarily closed bridge

T = the timeliness of the event–today, yesterday, last year

R= the rarity of the event, issue, policy. An atomic bombing is rarer than a hurricane; a hurricane is rarer than a thunderstorm; a "First" – as in "first Hispanic as U. S. Attorney General" or "first woman

or African American as Secretary of State" – has high rarity value

P = the prominence of the people involved, as a plane crash in which one of the passengers is the president compared to a senator

Cf/ Cr = the conflict or controversy surrounding the event

Ch = the change, and its degree, from the usual or normal

Hypcrsy = hypocrisy – people saying one thing/doing another or contradicting their public images – always has high new value, especially for politicians

U = the usefulness to the audience of the information

Factor X = such variables as sex, money, children, pets, human interest, a slow news day when nothing else is going on, or an editor's whim