The Four Cs of News
News is a written report or record of a recent event or action. It should be concise, comprehensive, and addressed to a specific audience. Moreover, it should provoke recipients to act. The four Cs of news include: Relevance, Magnitude, Timeliness, and Impact. Using these four Cs to evaluate news is useful for ensuring that it is meaningful.
Relevance
Relevance of news is a multidimensional construct that is built by users at various scales and through different linguistic strategies. News that is highly relevant to the reader is more likely to contain information about topics of interest to that reader. News that is highly irrelevant to the reader is less likely to include such information.
The relevancy of news to readers varies according to their own personal preferences and lifestyles. Some people may prefer reading news in its original language, while others may prefer a shortened version. However, it is impossible to make news relevant to all users – and journalists cannot assume that they are fully in control of this. This is why ethnographic research is essential for a deeper understanding of how people categorize news.
Magnitude
The magnitude of news is a metric that describes how much information impacts markets. For example, news about the economy can impact markets in different ways than news about central banks. A central bank announcement, for instance, will cause stocks to experience lower comovement than a similar announcement for bonds. Magnitude of news research is useful for both academics and practitioners because it reveals how different types of news can affect financial markets. This paper explores the utility of this metric in financial markets.
The magnitude of news is influenced by many factors. First, larger and more significant events are given greater prominence than smaller, less significant ones. Negative events are also given more prominence.
Timeliness
Timeliness of news is a central concern of many news organizations. Timeliness is not only a concern for news organizations, but it is also a core value that influences journalistic practice. Its development coincided with the development of telegraphy, which transformed news reporting. It enabled reporters to transmit impulses of information and excitement to newspaper audiences. It also helped to initiate the daily news cycle, in which daily newspapers presented themselves as a public portal to a newsgathering network. This study explores the cultural and organizational aspects of journalistic timeliness and how these attributes shape the news production process.
Timeliness became an important issue during the nineteenth century, when news was increasingly delivered to readers via telegraph. In some cases, powerful sources fixed publication dates. As a result, some stories presented in the telegraphic news cycle were not necessarily newsworthy. As a result, many newspapers routinely raised the date of their mail correspondence, so that readers would perceive that the news was fresh and timely.
Impact
News curation is an important process that influences the selection of news for users. But the way news is chosen has changed. Nowadays, news selection is done using algorithms rather than by professional journalists. This creates a news environment that is rich in choices, but users can only process so much information. Here are some ways that news curation can change to improve users’ news experiences.
Research has shown that negative news has a negative effect on a person’s mental health. In addition, exposure to negative news increases the heart rate and may cause cardiovascular issues. In one study, people who were exposed to negative news about 9/11 had a 53% higher risk of developing cardiovascular disease in three years, regardless of their previous health status. Furthermore, the coverage of the event contributed to these health issues, so news exposure can be detrimental to one’s mental health.