How has learning about newsworthiness and types of news articles affected the way you read newspapers?

How has learning about newsworthiness and types of news articles affected the way you read newspapers?

After learning about the factors leading to newsworthiness of news articles, I have begun to take note of certain details which I seldom notice in the past. Some of the factors of making a piece of news article newsworthy are unfamiliar to me. After learning more about each type of news articles (straight news and featured news), I realise that each type of news articles depend on different types of factors to make them newsworthy.

Straight news (Prime Section of newspaper) are usually more formal and have a serious tone. The factors which make them newsworthy are the number of people affected in the news, prominence of the characters involve in the incident, exceptional quality and sometimes human interest.

On the other hand, featured news (news article which elicits feelings and emotions) are written in a more discussive and casual tone. It includes more narration and descriptive details about certain shocking events in the newspaper. Usually, such articles depend on factors such as pathos, human interest, conflict, proximity (how close is the incident related to you) and probably the number of people affected. The narration in the article elicits the readers' feelings because it somehow made the readers feel as if they were in the scenes themselves!

After learning about newsworthiness and types of articles, I had look out for the respective factors in each articles. Most of the time, each type of articles would be able to prove its newsworthiness by including those factors. Of course, news articles would not be published if they are not newsworthy. But I had realised recently how much the factors in each type of articles would attract the readers attention. For example, recent news articles such as "Obama Captured Osama" include very prominent figures whom everyone knows. And without doubt, this article capture much attention from the public. The main factors affecting the newsworthiness of featured articles are the shock value of the articles and the pathos which elicits human emotion such as sympathy. Incidents about others in plight usually capture readers' attention as readers tend to be attracted to such news and sympathised with the people in the news articles.