Introduction

After selection of particular news comes the process of prioritization. Prioritization refers to setting an order in the importance of news stories. Prioritization is done in terms of international agenda, national agenda and local agenda.

Prioritization is also done keeping in mind competing stories and freshness. News houses have their own policies where prioritization of news items is concerned. In case of Indian news channel for example Aaj Tak or Star News, they will first deal with the national news unless there is an international issue which is of higher priority. One thing should be still kept in mind that the international news should be news worthy. In case of foreign news channels (BBC, CNN) they will cover news which is of national importance to those regions. Next in priority for these channels will be the news from other parts of the world. This holds true for all their segments be it sports, politics or religion.

However, breaking news whether be it national or international gets priority over all news items. For example, the 9/ 11was top priority news for all news channels, Indian or international. The national and local news took a backseat during this period.

Freshness

One other important difference between print and broadcast journalists is how they deal with refreshing the news items, especially in the lead. Newspapers work on a 24-hour cycle. Broadcast news may be updated every hour. For a print journalist there is nothing embarrassing about leading a story with an event that occurred in the previous 24 hours. But, for the broadcast journalist, there’s always the need to make the story as timely as possible to update the story from the most recent report that might have occurred only an hour ago. The story must be written in a style that highlights the most current situation. As a result lead sentences are almost always expressed in the present, present perfect or future tense. By implication, the news is immediate.

If a fire breaks out in a warehouse Monday night, then Tuesday morning the broadcast lead inevitably deals with clean up operations, damage estimates, perspective on the story. If a political leader makes a major announcement, then almost always reports it in the present tense:

“The president says- And, if that lead grows weary then the updated story leads with reaction to the announcement, reported in the present tense. Obviously, this emphasis on immediacy can grow artificial and diminish credibility. Time sequences for real events should not be distorted beyond comprehension. In fact, once the lead is delivered, the sequence of events may be related m the past tense. But within the limited time frame of broadcast news, potentially significant facts are always excluded. Searching for a link that ties the even~ to the present may help editor uncover an important detail or perspective that reporters failed to grasp when the story was still breaking.