The Characteristic of News

Suhandang notes that news might be in the form of straight news, and feature news there is also hard news but Suhandang doesn’t mention it in his book. Headline news, which becomes the main source of this thesis, is categorized as straight news. According to Suhadang, straight news is news that provides fact straightly or directly to the point 2004: 104. Straight news may be in the form of fact news, which only tells primary fact, action news, which only tells the action of the events or tells how certain events occur, and quote news, which tells some quotations from what the figures involved in certain events said. Headline news is always shown in main page of the newspaper because headline news is the most important story of today’s newspaper Reddick, 1941: 250. As the most important story of today’s newspaper, headline news has the largest headline on the page. Based on Reddick, the more important stories have the large headlines while the unimportant stories have small headlines 1941: 250. According to Mott 1969: 249 the nature of the modern press, particularly the newspaper, emphasizes certain requisites of illustrative art. Headline news, as one of the most important story of today’s newspaper, requires a picture as the illustration of the event which is told in the news story and also caption to describe what the picture is. Mott also noted that the illustration is designed to tell a story. Illustration of any kind fails of its purpose if it doesn’t tell or contribute to a story. The picture which is used by the press generally deal with incidents, and even an illustration which is reproduced because of its artistic worth should have story value as well 1969: 249 PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI News and feature pictures, covering the whole range of human events and interests, are assigned and placed in the layout in neat and orderly arrangement units. Under the pictures, usually there are a few clear and well-chosen words to show the essence of the picture story called caption. The caption is written by the copyreaders, who become the principal conservator of the proper standards of language in news paper. The form of the headline news has the similarities with the other news story. The conventional news story has two parts: lead and the body Mott, 1969: 65. The lead summarizes the story and serves three functions. Firstly, the lead answers the questions of who, what, when, where, why, and how. Secondly, the lead emphasizes the news feature of the story by placing it in the initial position. And the last, the lead provides such quick identification of persons, places, and events as it is necessary to an understanding of the story. The second part is the body. The body is an elaboration of the lead Mott, 1969: 65. When the facts are clear and well organized, the body will expand each of the points included in the lead in the same order, in which the lead has stated them. The material outlined by the lead may be presented based on the order of the interest. Those of greatest value being reported first and those with least value being used last. PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI