News Reporting and Editing Content analysis on selected 5 news stories on crime reporting (Times of India and The Hindu -15th March-20th March 2007)

Abstract

Journalists picked news stories from the society. Then these news stories are not totally new for the readers. News exert from the readers own experiences, from the reality. But journalists analysis it and present it in totally new way. Journalist selects a story from common experience and analysis it with a new dimension. In that way he can create completely new news for his readers. News is mostly defined by its qualities. The qualities are timeliness, proximity, prominence, consequence, rarity and human interest. Sometimes we can categorize news as hard news and soft news. According to this explanation crime reporting is related to timeliness, proximity and human interest. And we can identify it as a category of hard news. Newspapers report crimes just after it happened; not after few days or few weeks. When some one writes a good news story he/she follows an action plan. But when a journalist reports a crime incidence, he/she can not follow all theoretical structures. Crime is an unexpected instant incidence. Nobody cannot control its nature. Journalist should adjust to report crime incident with its own nature and own characteristics. With any of these difficulties, when journalist report crime news, that news should follow the basic concepts of reporting. According to these 5 crime stories this study, we can have an idea of news reporting in Indian news papers. If there is an unknown personal crime, news media will cover it in a balance and fair manner. But if it is connected with powerful social classes or political society, then the news media start to work with their institutional agendas. They look at the incident through the frame of their owners political agenda.