NEWS VALUES

Galtung and Ruge stated in 1965, that all the news stories that we receive via newspapers and news broadcasts are carefully selected and controlled by what they call Gatekeepers. They said that the news stories were chosen using a set of news values.

NEWS VALUES
Frequency: The time-span of an event and the extent to which it fits the frequency of the newspapers or news broadcasts schedule.
Threshold: How big is an event? Is it big enough to make it into the news? Unambiguity: How clear is the meaning of an event? Meaningfulness: How meaningful will the event appear to the receivers of the news? Cultural proximity: Events happening in cultures very different from our own will not be seen as being inherently meaningful to audiences here

Consonance: Does the event match the audiences expectations? Journalists have a pretty good idea of the angle from which they want to report an event, even before they get there.
Unexpectedness: Man bites dog is news. If an event is highly unpredictable, then it is likely to make it into news

NEWS VALUES
Continuity: Once an event has been covered, it is convenient to continue to cover it the running story.
Composition: This is a matter of the balance of the news. It is a matter of the editors judgement, more than anything else. A different news broadcast will have a different agenda in terms of hard and soft news. For example, usually dependent on the perceived target audience. Reference to elite nations: This relates again to cultural proximity. Those nations which are culturally closest to our own will receive most of the coverage.

References to elite persons: The media pay attention to important people. Anyone the media pay attention to must be important (this links to cult of the celebrity)
Personalisation: This connects with unambiguity and meaningfulness. Events are seen as the actions of individuals. Negativity: Bad news is good news in terms of what is reported.