Using News to Create Personal Stories
What is news? Well, it depends on your perspective. If you are an avid newspaper reader, you may consider news to be any story that is of interest to you. For example, if there was a huge earthquake in California and Mexico was being threatened, the headlines in most papers would be about this natural disaster. This would not be considered news by most people, but it is considered news by those who have tuned into the TV or radio to see what is going on.
News, to many readers, is a matter of fact. Things happen. This is a simple observation. But other readers tend to consider news a form of entertainment. If a news story is funny or exciting, readers will find it entertaining and worthy of your attention.
Some people consider news to be entirely subjective. This means that what is news to one person may not be news to another. What may be news to you as an individual, may not be news to another. Therefore, some stories that are fun or interesting to you, may not be news to your listeners or readers. Many people think that if a story is interesting to you, it may not be news to others. In essence, they believe that entertainment and news value are two different things.
However, most news stories are news to the reporters report the news with the same news value. They may not like the story, but they consider it fair game. Therefore, when you read a story that is not about public transportation, you can understand what the reporter is saying, but you cannot take it as entertainment. The same holds true if the story involves someone who is making a dangerous choice in life, you can understand the story and why the person made that choice, but you cannot take it as entertainment.
When you look for news stories, you should consider many things. One of those things is whether or not you think the story is interesting. News stories should not be taken as entertainment, but news stories should be taken as a part of your personal experience. If you find a news story that you find interesting, you should discuss that news story idea with other people, and you should consider using that story idea in a new news story that you create for your own personal amusement.
For instance, if you learn in a classroom or from a book that a particular person killed his wife and child because he was depressed, you may decide to make news stories out of that. You may use this as a platform to talk about depression and mental illness. On the other hand, if you learn in a class that aliens from outer space are invading our civilization, you may use this news story to talk about how that event may affect us as a people and as a population. These types of news stories should not be taken as entertainment, but news stories. They should be newsworthy because they are part of the public’s experience with that issue, or they may affect many people.