The News School (TNS) has its own brand of journalism, that being V.W.T.R.I.C.E.P. This acronym stands for Values, Who cares, Timeliness, Recognizability, Impact, Conflict, Emotional quality, and Proximity. The News school uses this useful acronym to determine if an article idea would matter to the communities it serves.
For example, something may fit well into the proximity category but not fit very well into the timeliness category. The News School’s brand of journalism is heavily inspired by the book “The Elements of Journalism” by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosensteil. In this article, V.W.T.R.I.C.E.P. as both a concept and an applied method will be explained to the fullest extent.
Values
Starting at the first level, values are about the morality or ethics present within the article. Values are one of the most important parts of the V.W.T.R.I.C.E.P. method. For example, imagine if The News School posted articles about how homeless people should all be drafted into the military and put on the front lines.
It would be absolutely ridiculous. The reason why is that the values are all messed up. Ethics and morality are fluid concepts. However, modern society has a general baseline for what is seen as immoral. The News School tries to be actively progressive in its values or at least at the baseline of modern morality.
This is generally considered good because it propagates the perspective of oppressed people. The News School serves instead of the more affluent folks whose perspective is always placed at the forefront of national conversations.
Who Cares
The next one is a bit more simplistic. “Who cares” is simply asking the question of who would care about the contents of the article. Or rather, who is the target audience for this article? Generally, The News School serves the community of North Lawndale.
The community of North Lawndale, and nearby communities, is generally the target audience. A lot of demographic research is done to make sure that the articles produced in both the Chicago Leader newspaper and the online publications, fit with the target audience. There is wiggle room for niche topics and niche target audiences, however, this is how things generally go.
Timeliness
Timeliness is about the time in which the article comes out versus the time in which the content is relevant to the target audience. For example, a news story reporting 9/11 as if it happened yesterday would be horrible from a timeliness standpoint. The reason why is that most people won’t care about a topic after a certain period. It simply becomes less relevant.
One could still do the 9/11 article but the premise would have to change to the “impacts” of the event rather than the event itself. Then the timeliness would be very good, as long as you are within September. The faster an article goes out about a recent event the better.
Recognizability
Recognizability is about how well-known or rather, how easily identifiable the content of the articles is. For example, celebrities and celebrity culture fall very in line with this. A greater example would be most political articles. They tend to have a central figure, a politician, or a well-known activist.
Focusing on Timeliness helps The News School make articles that matter to people. If the articles aren’t relevant to anything people care about then why make them at all? If people don’t recognize anything in the article then the information isn’t going to matter to them in most cases. V.W.T.R.I.C.E.P. is meant to help prevent that.
Impact
Moreover, the impact is about how the contents of the article could impact the target audience reading it. An example of this is how news publications always publish when a celebrity dies. The impacted target audience in that case is the fans of that celebrity.
The impact is important because the impact of the contents within an article can be very large. Going back to the celebrity example, sometimes false reporting happens and a celebrity is harmed by the false reporting.
That could result in negative backlash from other press and or fans of the celebrity. On top of all that, some subjects impact people differently. So much so that some subjects require trigger warnings above the article. The impact of any article needs to be handled with grace and tact. Otherwise, people could get hurt.
Conflict
Everyone knows that a good article has to have a good conflict. Part of journalism is storytelling as a craft. Sometimes when writing an article one tends to tell a story at the same time. Identifying the conflict of an article can be just as important as identifying the recognizability of the article as well. The conflict of an article can be found in many ways. It could be between a landlord and a tenant, or between two characters in a play.
Typically conflicts in stories tend to go one or more of three ways. Man versus man, when people go against each other. Man vs himself is where a person struggles with an internal problem. Finally, Man v. Society is where man goes against structures within society. The point of explaining that was to demonstrate hope complex conflict can be.
When journalists at The News School draft articles their conflict tends to be complicated like these are. However, they have the skill and the experience to make things simple for the target audience.
Emotional Quality
Many articles like to pull on the heartstrings of their target audience. When an article has bad things happening to good people, good things happening to good people, or cute animals, it is most likely trying to appeal to the target audience with its emotional quality.
Generally, the higher the emotional quality of an article the higher it will be paid attention to by its target audience. Identifying and applying sufficient emotional qualities to an article can boost the quality of the said article. Enhancing the emotional quality of an article can improve the experience and memorability of an article.
Proximity
Lastly, proximity is one of the most important parts of V.W.T.R.I.C.E.P. Proximity determines whether or not the article is relevant to the target audience’s location. For example, people in North Lawndale may not care about a random event happening in Czechoslovakia.
Getting the proximity right on an article can make all the difference in the impact of that article. If the purpose of journalism is to inform, and people these days have less time than ever then articles should be posted about locations the target audience would care about.
The News School’s V.W.T.R.I.C.E.P
Ultimately, V.W.T.R.I.C.E.P. as a concept is all about trying to figure out how to best serve the target audience with articles that serve their interest. The entire point of journalism, according to Dimarcko Chandler (Director of The News School and Chief editor of the Chicago Leader), is to provide citizens with the information they need to be free and self-governing.
The News School’s audience is primarily the Lawndale area, however, it also caters to all marginalized identities in the city of Chicago. That being said, the people of Chicago, especially its most marginalized citizens deserve to be free and self-governing.
Written by Kenneth Mazerat
Sources
Interview: Dimarcko Chandler; January 18
Masterclass: How to Write Like a Journalist: 8 Tips
Coschedule: How To Write Like A Journalist To Be A Better Marketing Storyteller by Ben Sailer
Work.Chron: The Qualities of a Good Newspaper Journalist by
Images Courtesy of TNS Staff
