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The output of the Press is determined by the social structure and political interests and views of the country, by the commercial structure, that is the financial support and institutions in the background and by the readership of the newspapers. All of these factors make their influence felt on what is published as news in the papers.
U.S., the political, economic and military 'superpower', takes part in the world's most significant events or at least concerned indirectly. From the current events happening in the world during a week an American newsmagazine includes news items connected to its territory, culture and people. That is why Time deals with happenings from each continent that somehow relevant to the U.S., and the vast majority of the other events are not mentioned.
After determining what the fundamental ideas are in the content of the newspapers, the next step is to describe and characterize the item that is called news, reported in the newsmagazines, to explain why some of the events are thought to be more important than the others, from the series of events which are those that are mentioned, who selects the events and what the basics of selection are.
Events become news if they are selected or if they can be regarded and presented as newsworthy. The fact that something happened is not enough in itself. During the selection news undergoes transformation and treatment according to political, economical and social factors. That is why newspapers report differently in both content and presentation. "...all news is always reported from some particular angle." (Roger Fowler, p.10) So news is not only based on proven sources, but gives a particular view of the world at the same time.
The whole selection is made according to set of categories of newsworthiness. The more of them an event satisfies, the more likely it is to become news. The criteria events have to fulfill are called news values, which include several factors.
Negative events like damage, death, rape, murder and injury etc. are more likely to be reported than everyday stories. For the rest of the people it has psychic background. Tolsztoj's Ivan Iljics' death could illustrate it well. There is a sentence in it, something like Kay is dead, but I am not Kay. Its message is that Ivan Iljics goes to the funeral to see the widow and her children, to smell death, but he can not believe that the whole could happen to him as well. This is the same with people. They like taking delight in and revel in the stories, problems and negativity of the others, while they do not realize that they could be in the place of one of the victims, and they feel pleasure that they are outsiders. For the other part of the people reading about negative events is a refuge and 'community of interests'. They endured something bad or terrible earlier and while reading these negativities they feel that they are not the only ones to whom those awkward events happened.
Numerals play an important role in arousing the readers interest. It is called 'threshold'. Those happenings, which include several participants (that can be human beings, animals, vehicles, objects etc.) will attract more attention. Like in the IRA case where 100 people were injured, 39 needing hospital treatment, six of them seriously wounded and two people died. Or in the aircraft crash where 176 passengers and 13 crew members died.
Personalization, reference to people, is a significant factor in newspapers. Events, which contain stories about individual persons become news. This category may include references to political personalities, pop personalities, sports people, television personalities etc. Readers are usually interested in personal details, concreteness of individuals, others life or as regards politicians readers like to be informed about their work, speeches and acts.
Relevance, in respect of newsworthiness, means those happenings, which effects or the happenings in themselves have something in common with the readers own lives, because e.g. the same risks, processes or events may exist in their country or in their everydays. Closeness in itself is not equal to relevance. The IRA bomb strike for example is not relevant to Scotland, the whole attempt was undoubtedly against England. Air and river pollution, industrial accidents, natural disasters are typical instances apart from distance.
Elitness, reference to elite nations such as Japan the USA, England, elit people such as politicians, movie and pop stars, famous business people or Queen Elizabeth etc. are highly newsworthy.

There are several more factors, but in the list those elements are mentioned, which are identified in the articles.

BLOWN-AWAY HOPES

This is a highly newsworthy event, because satisfies several news stereotypes.

Negativity, as an IRA terror bomb exploded in London at South Quay station near an elevated railway, after the Aug. 31, 1994 IRA declaration of cease-fire, ending 17 months and 10 days of peace. The pictures support the dread of the event. A man with bleeding body, the remains of the buildings and a picture from the 1993.

The attempt is significant on criteria 'threshold'. 100 people were injured, 39 needing hospital treatment, six of them seriously wounded and the following day two newsstand workers bodies were found after the bomb packing half-ton explosives went off at 7:01 pm on Febr. 9, devastating five nearby buildings, two of them left partly demolished.

As the Irish problem has been appearing on the agenda since Cromwell brutally 'settled down' in Northern Ireland, and the 1798 uprising against the British rule it was in a sense expected despite the British and Irish governments "all-party talks" and agreement. Over a quarter-century 3170 people died due to the conflict and differences between the Roman Catholics and Protestants. The enclosed Bloody History chart introduces the main steps between the two countries and attacks of IRA against the British from April 24, 1993 to their latest attempt. In 1993 in London's financial district an IRA bomb exploded killing one and injuring 45 people. So the Febr. 9, 1996 event increased the British anxiety about starting up the whole fighting again. A quote from 1921, published in Newsweek reporting the same event can illustrate the fundamentals and the origin of this contrast between the two countries. 'this is Ireland, where the ghosts of the past sit on the shoulders of today's little heroes, beckoning them to the grave.'
The constuction of the headline may have a figurative content. The word blown-away, refers to something physical, material and has undoubted outcome, is connected to the word hopes, which is mental and include uncertainty. In the combination of the headline this mental thing is affected in material way by an action.

Death at a Discount

This event introduce the productive interaction between the news media, the public and official agencies. There is a process. A fatal accident or crash is reported in the newsmagazine with its every little and real detail; the spokeman of professional pilots' association 'criticized the safety and maintenance practices of charter firms'; the statement that 'European vacation market, catering to vacationers more concerned about price than safety,' and the circumstances surrounding the crash may have been too typical; the background information about flights, all these confirm fears about the danger associated with cheap tickets and charter flights. And here appears the public, because the listed facts touch public and personal daily life. 'Whatever is found to be the immediate cause of the crash' the demand for cut-rate-vacation will decline, suspicion will arise toward low prices and the ferocious competition in the charter business will lie behind at least temporary. This accident becomes relevant this way not only to German travellers, but to travellers from every part of the world, because similar risks may exist in other countries. The official agencies are going to review, examine the safety and maintenance standards of flights due to the accident, as it happened in this case. The day after the crash a Birgen Air flight was delayed because its documents were incomplete.

Death at a Discount. There is a some kind of contradiction in the headline. Death is negative while discount is positive word. This solution gives a stress and attracts attention. The description of physical state, death and the reference to a circumstance, at a discount in the headline, both beginning with capital d, emphasize the fatality of the event as it was 'the worst such accident in German travel history.'

As regards news values, it is a negative event. The chartered Boeing 757 carrying German and Polish tourists from Puerto Plata to Berlin and Frankfurt plummeted into the sea. The enclosed photographs introduce the fate of the charter flight. Broken bodies, remnants of tourists, clothes and the rescue workers' attempt at gathering the corpses' remains. In the smaller one the grief of the passengers relatives.

The number of the victims involved in the accident make the event newsworthy as well. 176 passengers and 13 crew members died, there were no survivors.

The crash of the charter flight was unpredictable and unexpected, although Alas Flight 301 stopped operating because of inadequate safety and maintenance standards. But later resumed flights by renting planes from a Turkey firm, Birgen Air. One of the three rented planes was the fatal Boeing 757.

Newspapers contain stories about individual persons. References to people is an important factor and become news stories. Elit persons or ordinary persons doing something unusual and significant or just unnamed people involved in a negative, sudden or general event, like victims of an airplane crash or earthquake.

In specialized pages, in Time back on the news pages, one can read about pop personalities, sports people or television personalities. These articles contain concretness of individual reference, personal details such as age, residence, job or personal appearances with enclosed photographs. The world reported by the popular Press is 'a culturally organized set of categories'. It is like an illusion. It illustrates a person as a member of a certain type. Readers think about that person as the qualities the category, according to the readers, embodies. In some cases individuals loose their personal features, because this categorization establishes value judgement, which become permanent, usual and used often emphasizing those values that are believed to be appropriate to the type.

In people column there are articles of popular people with enclosed photographs, which not always portray natural position and the strict reality. The 'stars' are put into adventageous postures, they always have artificial smiles on their face, loose the natural, 'palpable' features and embody a world, which is unattainable for the ordinary people. All these elements cause the readers to establish the above mentioned categorization and value judgement and produce an illusion using imagination without being conscious of it. Compared to the articles, topics and photoes published in the fore-part of the newsmagazine these factors also determine the newsworthiness and news values. The content of them are rather treat, interesting pieces than officially confirmed facts.

Devotion

This article reveals concretness about the personality of Hakeem Olajuwon. The age, he is 33, the profession, he is one of the best players in the National Basketball Association, the religion, he is devout Muslim (religion is one of the ticklish topics), the origin, he is Nigerian-born and the believes.

If you meet someone personally for the first time you would rarely be informed more thoroughly or detailed.

Pearls Are a Girl's Best Friend

The vocabulary items, like beauty, talent, charisma, diva, public, timing, superstar, marital legend, TV appearance, self-promotion and the construction, like but darlings..., And did we mention that diva..., are typical back on the news pages.

References to politicians satisfy personalization and elitness as well. Newsmagazines include reports of statements, promises, judgements, parliamentary debates, political manifestos of prominent people. Fowler drew up one of the clues:

'Accessed voices', as Hartley calls them, are the views and styles of a privileged body of politicians, civil servants,...,experts of various kinds...etc. Access is a reciprocal relationship between such people and the media; the media conventionally expect and receive the right of access to the statements of these individuals, because the individuals have roles in the public domain; and reciprocally these people receive access to the columns of the papers when they wish to air their views.

This access becomes an important factor e.g. during the election campaign.

Abroad with Forbes

Michael Kramer asked the Republican candidate Steve Forbes about China, and this is the text of that interview, quoting Forbes' own statements in connection with his foreign policy.
Discrimination is in more than one respect a part of personalization. The stereotype that a culture has conventionally assigned to blacks, a special group with its own peculiar characteristics, is applied and affect the individuals, who allegedly, supposedly belong to that group.

The significance of this happening is exceed personalization. In normal circumstances one would say that it is satisfies personalization because something unusual, negative happened to an ordinary person. The fundamentals of the event is that Cynthia Wiggins, who was 17 years old died on the morning of Dec. 14., as 'she was hit by a 10-ton dump truck.' Some concreteness of her personality are introduced. She was engaged, she wanted to become a doctor, she boarded the No. 6 bus in the Buffalo suburbs, she worked in Cheektowaga as a cashier at Arthur Treacher's Fish Chips. Her colour, she was black, which makes the event more than personalization, takes the whole problem to refer to relevance as well. The reason of her death was that Wiggins had to get out of the bus 275 m away on a seven-lane highway with no sidewalk, because the bus was not allowed on mall property. The fact that the bus carrying inner-city blacks to work was not allowed on mall property suggests the idea or has the effect that no blacks allowed and, as Henry Louis Taylor determined it, it is 'guiltless racism.'

The vocabulary items of the article, like allow, was not allowed, blame, sanitized, guiltless racism, had to..., minorities, keep blacks under surveilance, unwanted Nigger, separate localities, regulate, racial restrictions, rules and regulations, racial discrimination are all emphasize the provided unequal chances, the fact that blacks are percieved not as their own persons and qualification, but as the 'qualities' and prejudice, which have stereotypically assigned to the group or, if people are categorized in terms of colours, whites feel ascribed authority to control the blacks' actions and liberties.

The black problem and the discrimination are not simply the question of the present. The whole began in the South with slavery, which went on with repression and discrimination strengthened by federal laws. After abolishing slavery in 1865 a series of segregation laws came in the South, which required that whites and blacks use separate public facilities. These were the separate but equal laws. For more than fifty years many states used this to segregate races and it seems that some motives can be found today as well.

Chips Ahoy

'Cultural proximity' and relevance are the significant factors here. The starting-point is that researchers in the U.S. made a study analyzing programs of TV in mid-90's America, which concluded that the link between TV violence and aggressive behaviour is no longer in doubt. (So it is made in America by Americans.) Therefore the phenomenon reported in the news item has an effect on the audience's own life and the topic in itself is up-to-date. Many parents worry that this kind of TV programs do irreparable harm to their children. To solve this problem somehow, President Clinton signed into the telecommunication bill and launched the era of the V chip, which offers the solution for parents. This equipment enables them to keep those programes out that have been labeled as high in violence, sex etc. The whole process is not only relevant to the U.S., but to most countries, because, as American films and movies are broadcast almost all over the world, the same risks may exist there.

This question concerned politicians, like Clinton, Paul Simon, Joseph Lieberman, Bob Dole, so elitness is presented. Another factor is threshold, the numerals, as the details are mentioned e.g. nearly 2700 shows analyzed in a 20-week survey of 23 channels.

Apart from the above mentioned news values this article is important, because it has an informing role, it introduces the problem and gives the solution at the same time.

Each paper has a particular organizational framework, readership and sense of news. The organization of the newspaper, the format of the page, the number, size and place of photographs, charts, maps, style and size of print are all significant factors of newspaper representation.

Differences in drafting and style carry ideological distinctions. As it is mentioned in the first part, during the selection news undergoes some transformation according to political, economical and social factors. That is why different newspapers report differently in both content and presentation. The same topic, sources will appear differently in papers.

The representation of the cover story, IRA terror bomb exploded in London, ending 17 months and 10 days of peace, suggests a sense of ideological distinction between Time and Newsweek. In Newsweek, on the front-page, there is an old, grey-haired and bespectacled man covered up in a red cloth with a bleeding head. The headline, Broken Peace The IRA Bombs London, consists one circumstance that the whole happened in London. Compared this to the front-page of Time, here the enclosed photograph and the organization of the text and the page seem a little bit theatrical and it produces a psychic effect on the reader. As regards Time, the case in point appears without picture on the front-page. In stead of peace the word cease-fire is used, which does not mean the same. Peace is an ended and permanent state, while cease-fire is transitional. In the headline more circumstances are included. The event happened in London, shattered nearly 18 months of peace, and its effect, apart from the victims, is that it brings back the dread. There is a particularity that the background of the word broken is a fire and in the illustration this word is broken literally.

There are some differences in the sources of the articles. According to Newsweek the bomb went off at just after 7 o'clock, while Time says that the time was 7:01 pm, and they complete it with the fact that the bomb was placed in a truck parking nearby. As regards the number of victims Time's data are more detailed. It injured 100 people-39 needing hospital treatment and six seriously wounded...the bodies of two newsstand workers were found. The name and age of the two dead workers are published as well. Newsweek's source is that more than 100 people injured, six of them seriously , and...the next day, two bodies were found. This attempt ended 17 months and 10 days of peace, while in Newsweek only 17 months are mentioned. There is a difference in time between the announcement of ending the cease-fire and the explosion of the bomb. According to Newsweek the length of time was 90 minutes whereas Time says that it was 80 minutes.

The content of the newspapers and the news itself are products. News is not just the real events happened all over the world, but those which are selected according to political, economical and social factors. 'It is a creation of a journalistic process, an artifact, a commodity even.' (Roger Fowler, p.13) An event is selected to be reported in a newsmagazine if it satisfies several criteria of newsworthiness, or, in other words, news values.