The Rules of Writing News and publications

The 12 factors also known as Galtung and Ruge‟s news values list:

1- Frequency: An event that unfolds within a publication cycle of the news medium is more likely to be selected
than a one that takes place over a long period of time.
2- Threshold: Events have to pass a threshold before being recorded at all; the greater the intensity (the more
gruesome the murder or the more casualties in an accident), the greater the impact and the more likely it is to be selected.
3- Unambiguity: The more clearly an event can be understood and interpreted without multiple meanings, the more
likely it is to be selected.
4- Meaningfulness: The culturally familiar is more likely to be selected.
5- Consonance: The news selector may be able to predict (due to experience) events that will be newsworthy, thus
forming a “pre-image” of an event, which in turn increases its chances of becoming news.
6- Unexpectedness: Among events meaningful and/or consonant, the unexpected or rare event is more likely to be
selected.
7- Continuity: An event already in the news has a good chance of remaining in the news (even if its impact has been
reduced) because it has become familiar and easier to interpret.
8- Composition: An event may be included as news less because of its intrinsic news value than because it fits into
the overall composition or balance of a newspaper or news broadcast.
9- Reference to elite nations: The actions of elite nations are seen as more consequential than the actions of other
nations.
10- Reference to elite people: Again, the actions of elite people, likely to be famous, may be seen by news selectors
as having more consequence than others, and news audiences may identify with them.
11- Reference to persons: News that can be presented in terms of individual people rather than abstractions is likely
to be selected.
12- Reference to something negative: Bad events are generally unambiguous and newsworthy.

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Also, Grice (1989), this definition will be largely defines the four maxims as below:

1. Quantity (give as much information as is required, and no more than is required)
2. Quality (do not say what is false or that for which you lack adequate evidence)
3. Relation (be relevant)
4. Manner (be clear, be orderly, and avoid ambiguity) (Ibid, p. 28).

These rules are instrumental to news formulation, and the content newsworthy. (Galtung and Rouge
1965 cited in O‟Neill and Harcup , 2009, p.164-165)