Top News Assignment

While I was trolling the San Jose Mercury news paper for a noteworthy story I saw SJSU’s name in the headline. My eyes lit up immediately. New of late for our strong but struggling university has been grim. Most of what we read mentions additional budget cuts. This is a newsworthy story for anyone that currently attends SJSU or is considering it for their future education. This story is also important for the hundreds of employees at SJSU that are also facing budget cuts, work hour reduction and layoffs.
I saw in the news heading that SJSU was actually getting money instead of loosing it ,and immediately was interested. Because our textbook states that “Readers want stories that personally connect.” I felt that this story was worthy of Top News. Many students, employees and parents will see this story and read it to figure out how it will impact them. The proximity of this story to our bay area residents allows them to read news that will immediately effect their community. Because country wide budget cuts are in the spotlight the currency of this story is high because it highlights a topic that is on the mind of almost everyone in American and it brings it back down to our local community level.
The lessons I learned this week about top news including the news values from the previous paragraph are; one, if it doesn’t grab your thoughts immediately, you may pass it by. Two, if it personally effects the reader they are more likely to scan or read the story in its entirety. Last but not least number three, Money always make for a good storyline and attention getter.

http://www.mercurynews.com/bay-area-news/ci_14343886