Why do some events fill the columns and air time of news media, while others are ignored?
Why do some stories make banner headlines whereas others merit no more than a few lines? What factors decide what news professionals consider newsworthy? Such questions are often answered – by journalists and media researchers alike – with references to journalistic news values or ‘news criteria’. Some answers are normatively founded; others are pragmatic and descriptive.
In the present article, the author submits that editorial priorities should not be analyzed in purely journalistic terms. Instead, they should be seen as efforts to combine journalistic norms and editorial ambitions, on the one hand, with commercial norms and market objectives, on the other.
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