A general pattern in the construction of economic newsworthiness? Analyzing news factors in popular, quality, regional, and financial newspapers

Abstract

Journalists use news factors to construct newsworthy stories. This study investigates whether different types of news outlets emphasize different news factors. Using a large-scale manual content analysis (n = 6489), we examine the presence of seven news factors in economic news across four different outlets types (i.e. popular, quality, regional, and financial newspapers). Results suggest that popular and regional newspapers particularly rely on the news factors of personification, negativity, and geographical proximity. Quality newspapers, instead, employ a rather general pattern of news factors, whereas the financial newspaper consistently relies on less news factors in its reporting. Findings urge scholars to move toward a more detailed understanding of how newsworthiness is constructed in different types of news outlets.