The newsrooms of media companies have been evolving from traditional to modern during the last few years.
Why so? Because the dissemination of news has come a long way – from recording news bulletins for the radio to now writing news stories for digital platforms.
Due to technological advancements and shifting public interests, such a radical shift in news coverage was inevitable.
However, even today, news writers still choose to cover news under two broad categories – Hard News and Soft News, in an unbiased manner.
Hard News
Hard News involves time-sensitive news, which is severe and is reported as breaking news immediately. Some of its examples are Political Journalism, Investigative Journalism, Business Journalism, Crime Journalism, Global news, Sports Journalism etc.
These news stories involve serious facts, in-depth research and follow an inverted pyramid structure - 5W's and 1H - Who, What, Why, When, Where and How for writing news.
Soft News
Soft News involves entertainment and lifestyle centric news stories. They primarily carry information for the amusement or personal usage of the public. Some examples are entertainment and lifestyle Journalism on movies, fashion, food, beauty and skincare etc. Continue to read to know the details of kinds of journalism mentioned above:
Political Journalism
The news in political journalism is provided in formats like 'national', 'local' and 'international', political news. Such stories cover political parties, political figures, elections, political; campaigns to inform government activities etc.
Investigative Journalism
Investigative journalism's major goal is to expose the truth, which people, especially public figures, often tend to hide. These reportages require a thorough investigation of the facts to provide the public with accurate information about the scandalous subject.
Business Journalism
Business journalism primarily deals with economy-related news stories. These stories specialize in telling – business mergers and policies, business scams, market, stocks, economy etc.
International News
The global news section provides foreign news coverage - wars, inter or intrastate disputes, diplomatic relations etc. Media correspondents are posted in various countries to fetch news for their own media organization.
Crime Journalism
Crime journalism solely informs the truth behind criminal activities. These journalists cover anything which is of a criminal offence.
Lifestyle Journalism
Lifestyle journalism covers food, fashion, health, travel, music, home decor, beauty etc. These stories have gained people's interest over the years and are popular.
Entertainment Journalism
Entertainment journalists include news stories of celebrities and events. It reports about celebrities, movies, entertainment business, award ceremonies etc.
Sports journalism
Sports journalists are assigned to cover news related to sports personalities and events. There is a requirement to keep prior knowledge of sports to report stories.
Scientific journalism
Scientific journalists report scientific facts and research in a news format. They help the general public to interpret science and gather knowledge through simple language.
This segregation of journalism helps you select the news stories of your choice. Moreover, this will inculcate the habit of reading news in you.
This year we have collected more detailed data on the level of interest people have in different news topics across countries and between demographics. Political news is considered most important in Germany, Turkey, and the United States, partly no doubt due to the ongoing presidential election and the drama around Donald Trump’s candidacy. International news is of particular interest in Germany and Austria as well as Ireland. Japanese are most interested in entertainment and celebrity news, with the Spanish, Danes, French, and Germans showing the least interest. Regional news is most important in Germany, Finland, and Spain, reflecting the relative importance of devolved political power in those countries and the media systems that have grown up around this.
But in addition to country-based differences we can see clear differences in gender, with men more interested in subjects like sport and politics and women paying more attention to stories about health and the environment. Again this plays into the debate over distributed content and may help explain why women are often less likely to directly access news websites dominated by politics and business.
INTEREST IN DIFFERENT TYPES OF NEWS BY GENDER – ALL COUNTRIES
Sport | 48% | 19% |
Business | 48% | 30% |
Politics | 53% | 37% |
Science & Tech | 59% | 39% |
Crime & Security | 47% | 48% |
Health & Education | 46% | 59% |
Environment | 45% | 47% |
Lifestyle | 26% | 43% |
Celebrity | 15% | 25% |
Base: Male/Female in all countries: 26098/27232
We can also divide consumers into groups based on their interest in ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ news topics. ‘Hard’ news is typically used to refer to topics that are usually timely, important and consequential, such as politics, international affairs and business news. Conversely, soft news topics include entertainment, celebrity, and lifestyle news.
We asked our survey respondents to rate their interest in several news topics on a five-point scale. We then used this data to compute average levels of interest in hard and soft news for each respondent. Subsequently we compared the scores for hard and soft news, and divided respondents into three groups; those who are more interested in hard news topics, those who are more interested in soft news, and those whose interest in both is the same.
TOPICS INCLUDED IN HARD NEWS AND SOFT NEWS MEASURES
Base: All who indicated a level of interested in all news topics.
On average, in every country we see that interest levels are higher for hard news topics. However, this is likely to be influenced by social desirability bias [the idea that it is more acceptable to interested in certain types of news] as well the norms of the traditional news agenda. At the individual level, people with a high degree of interest in hard news also tend to be the most interested in soft news, and vice versa.
Yet we still see a significant minority in every country that report they are more interested in soft news topics than hard news. The size of this group varies country by country. Around one-third in Japan [34%] and Korea [33%] say they are more interested in soft news. However, less than one in five say the same in most other countries. The preference for hard news is particularly strong in Greece [81%], Spain [77%], Denmark [77%], and Germany [76%].
PROPORTION THAT ARE MORE INTERESTED IN HARD NEWS OR MORE INTERESTED IN SOFT NEWS – ALL COUNTRIES
GRE | 81% | 9% | 10% |
SPA | 77% | 11% | 12% |
DEN | 77% | 9% | 14% |
GER | 76% | 12% | 12% |
USA | 74% | 13% | 14% |
AUT | 74% | 12% | 14% |
SWE | 73% | 12% | 15% |
UK | 71% | 12% | 17% |
FIN | 70% | 12% | 18% |
NOR | 68% | 14% | 18% |
NLD | 68% | 16% | 16% |
CAN | 68% | 14% | 19% |
SUI | 68% | 13% | 19% |
BEL | 68% | 14% | 19% |
TUR | 67% | 17% | 17% |
FRA | 67% | 16% | 18% |
IRE | 66% | 15% | 19% |
POR | 65% | 16% | 19% |
ITA | 63% | 17% | 21% |
POL | 63% | 19% | 18% |
CZE | 63% | 15% | 22% |
AUS | 62% | 16% | 22% |
BRA | 60% | 18% | 22% |
HUN | 59% | 15% | 26% |
KOR | 50% | 17% | 33% |
JPN | 49% | 17% | 34% |
Base: All who indicated a level of interest in all news topics: Greece = 1972, Spain = 2061, Denmark = 1952, Germany = 1948, US = 2072, Austria = 1906, Sweden = 1980, UK = 1990, Finland = 1980, Norway = 1970, Netherlands = 1946, Canada = 1962, Switzerland = 1949, Belgium = 1954, Turkey = 2027, France = 2059, Ireland = 1943, Portugal = 1966, Italy = 2140, Poland = 1915, Czech Republic = 1973, Australia = 1962, Brazil = 1920, Hungary = 1965, Korea = 2069, Japan = 1943
If we focus on those that say they are more interested in soft news, we see that they are more likely to be young and female. In countries such as Japan and Italy, where interest in soft news is high, women are almost twice as likely as men to be more interested in soft news topics compared to hard.
PROPORTION OF MALES AND FEMALES THAT ARE MORE INTERESTED IN SOFT NEWS TOPICS
Spain | 14% | 19% |
Germany | 9% | 16% |
USA | 9% | 18% |
UK | 14% | 19% |
Italy | 12% | 23% |
Japan | 23% | 44% |
Base: All males/females who indicated a level of interest in all news topics: Spain = 1009/1051, Germany = 949/999, US = 1034/1039, UK = 962/1028, Italy = 1018/1121, Japan = 936/1007.
In every country younger people are more likely to be more interested in soft news topics. Strikingly, over half of under-35s in Japan say they are more interested in soft news topics than hard news.
PROPORTION WITHIN EACH AGE GROUP THAT ARE MORE INTERESTED IN SOFT NEWS TOPICS
Spain | 18% | 19% | 13% | 11% | 8% |
Germany | 18% | 17% | 14% | 14% | 8% |
USA | 23% | 21% | 19% | 14% | 6% |
UK | 17% | 26% | 26% | 17% | 9% |
Italy | 29% | 31% | 26% | 21% | 12% |
Japan | 58% | 47% | 39% | 36% | 21% |
Base: All 18-24/25-34/35-44/45-54/55+ who indicated a level of interested in all news topics: Spain = 184/366/425/372/714, Germany = 186/275/352/360/777, US = 234/381/374/251/834, UK = 235/281/363/395/717, Italy = 183/317/418/375/846, Japan = 181/328/309/303/822.
Of course, what people say they are interested in may not accurately reflect what they actually do. Nonetheless, we observe some differences in consumption among those that are more interested in soft news. Most noticeably, they are considerably more likely to say that social media is their main source of news. Over one in five of those more interested in soft news in Spain [21%], Italy [20%], and the United States [26%] say that social media are their main source of news. This has a knock-on effect for related aspects of offsite news consumption, with people who prefer soft news more likely to watch news video on social media, and more likely to participate in news coverage. However, this is in part caused by the fact that younger people in general are more likely to use social media for news.
PROPORTION OF THOSE THAT ARE MORE INTERESTED IN HARD NEWS AND SOFT NEWS TOPICS THAT SAY SOCIAL MEDIA IS THEIR MAIN SOURCE OF NEWS
Spain | 11% | 21% |
Germany | 4% | 11% |
USA | 10% | 26% |
UK | 6% | 13% |
Italy | 7% | 20% |
Japan | 5% | 9% |
Q4. You say you’ve used these sources of news in the last week, which would you say is your MAIN source of news?
Base: All those who prefer hard/soft news topics that used a source of news in the last week: Spain = 1572/243, Germany = 1442/229, US = 1480/270, UK = 1388/311, Italy = 1337/435, Japan = 929/625.