There is lots of news to be found in the world every day. So how does that news end up in the newspaper, on the tv news or on your favourite news website? Discover the steps and rules that determine what news you see.
News can end up in a newsroom in various ways: via press agencies, press releases, journalists’ sources, … But not everything will make it into the actual news. The first job of journalists is to separate the wheat from the chaff: which news is the most newsworthy? This process is called news selection.
Een persagentschap of nieuwsagentschap is een organisatie die nationaal en internationaal nieuws aanlevert aan nieuwsredacties. Zo kunnen redacties besparen op personeelskosten en veel tijd winnen. Het bekendste persagentschap in België is Belga.
When the news of the day has been selected, the real work begins. Editorial meetings take place to divide the work and to determine the right angles and approaches. The journalists then go off to do interviews, write articles, or travel to the event location to gain more insight, while the photographers and camera crews provide images.
When all the bite-sized pieces of news are ready, graphic designers, video editors and editors-in-chief get to work to create a coherent package. The paper can go to print, the articles can go online and the tv news is ready to go live. If any last-minute important news comes in, the entire process can start again, even at the eleventh hour!
In 2010, the Board of Journalism wrote down the so-called rules for journalistic professional ethics. These rules were published in the Code of the Board of Journalism and are meant to be a guideline for the work of journalists.
For example, the journalistic code emphasises the importance of referencing sources, of highlighting multiple points of view in an article, and of clearly discerning between facts and opinions.
What does a day in the newsroom of a paper look like?
