News

===Tone===
Most purveyors of news value impartiality, neutrality, and [[Journalistic objectivity|objectivity]], despite the inherent difficulty of reporting without political bias.<ref>Heyd, ''Reading newspapers'' (2012), pp. 36–37.</ref> Perception of these values has changed greatly over time as sensationalized '[[tabloid journalism]]' has risen in popularity. [[Michael Schudson]] has argued that before the era of World War I and the concomitant rise of [[propaganda]], journalists were not aware of the concept of [[media bias|bias in reporting]], let alone actively correcting for it.<ref>Schudson, ''Discovering the News'' (1978), p. 6. "Before the 1920s, journalists did not think much about the subjectivity of perception. They had relatively little incentive to doubt the firmness of the reality by which they lived. […] After World War I, however, this changed. Journalists, like others, lost faith in the democratic market society had taken for granted. Their experience of propaganda during the war and public relations thereafter convinced them that the world they reported was one that interested parties had constructed for them to report. In such a world, naïve empiricism could not last."</ref> News is also sometimes said to portray the [[truth]], but this relationship is elusive and qualified.<ref>Allan, ''News Culture'' (2004), pp. 46–47.</ref>

Paradoxically, another property commonly attributed to news is [[sensationalism]], the disproportionate focus on, and [[exaggeration]] of, emotive stories for public consumption.<ref>Stephens, ''History of News'' (1988), p. 2. "Sensationalism appears to be a technique or style that is rooted somehow in the nature of the news. News obviously can do much more than merely sensationalize, but most news ''is'', in an important sense, sensational: it is intended, in part, to arouse, to excite, often—whether the subject is a political scandal or a double murder—to shock."</ref><ref name="SKH">{{Cite journal |last1=Strömbäck |first1=Jesper |last2=Karlsson |first2=Michael |last3=Hopmann |first3=Nicolas |year=2012 |title=Determinants of News Content: Comparing journalists' perceptions of the normative and actual impact of different event properties when deciding what's news |journal=Journalism Studies |volume=13 |pages=5–6 |doi=10.1080/1461670X.2012.664321|s2cid=55642544 }}</ref> This news is also not unrelated to [[gossip]], the human practice of sharing information about other humans of mutual interest.<ref>Stephens, ''History of News'' (1988), pp. 26, 105–106.</ref> A common sensational topic is violence; hence another news dictum, "if it bleeds, it leads".<ref>Allan, ''News Culture'' (2004), p. 202.</ref>