News stories are basically divided into two types: hard news and soft news. Hard new generally refers to up-to-the-minute news and events that are reported immediately, while soft news is background information or human-interest stories.Politics, war, economics and crime used to be considered hard news, while arts, entertainment and lifestyles were considered soft news.
Definitions
Hard news is the kind of fast-paced news that usually appears on the front page of newspapers. Stories that fall under the umbrella of hard news often deal with topics like business, politics and international news.
What defines hard news isn't always about subject matter. Some might call a news story that's heavily reported, on a subject matter considered softer (like entertainment), hard news because of the way it was approached.
Soft media is defined as those organizations that primarily deal with commentary, entertainment, arts and lifestyle. Soft media can take the form of television programs, magazines or print articles. The communication from soft media sources has been referred to as soft news
Is it possible to do a hard-news report on a soft-news topic (i.e. entertainment) and vice versa?
It is not possible because of the following factors.
The idea of hard news embodies two concepts:
Seriousness: Politics, economics, crime, war, and disasters are considered serious topics, as are certain aspects of law, business, science, and technology.
Timeliness: Stories that cover current events—the progress of a war, the results of a vote, the breaking out of a fire, a significant statement, the freeing of a prisoner, an economic report of note.
The logical opposite, soft news is sometimes referred to in a derogatory fashion as infotainment. Defining features catching the most criticism include:
The least serious subjects: Arts and entertainment, sports, lifestyles, "human interest", and celebrities.
Not timely: There is no precipitating event triggering the story, other than a reporter's curiosity.
It wont be possible to put hard news and soft news with each other as they both have different audiences, source's and forms of media through which they reach their readers or viewers. It would only mix things up as certain papers have certain news, like CNN has only hard news but entertainment news have soft news, which is not important but people read it or watch it for entertainment purposes.
People read each type of news for different purposes, hard news mainly consists of political stories, business deals and firms and also national emergencies and natural disasters, these news are important to the viewers as they are informative and benefit the readers. But soft news consists of topics like art, film and entertainment which are read for pleasure purposes. Therefore you cannot put hard news on soft news and vice versa.
The idea of hard news embodies two concepts:
Seriousness: Politics, economics, crime, war, and disasters are considered serious topics, as are certain aspects of law, business, science, and technology.
Timeliness: Stories that cover current events—the progress of a war, the results of a vote, the breaking out of a fire, a significant statement, the freeing of a prisoner, an economic report of note.
The logical opposite, soft news is sometimes referred to in a derogatory fashion as infotainment. Defining features catching the most criticism include:
The least serious subjects: Arts and entertainment, sports, lifestyles, "human interest", and celebrities.
Not timely: There is no precipitating event triggering the story, other than a reporter's curiosity.
People read each type of news for different purposes, hard news mainly consists of political stories, business deals and firms and also national emergencies and natural disasters, these news are important to the viewers as they are informative and benefit the readers. But soft news consists of topics like art, film and entertainment which are read for pleasure purposes. Therefore you cannot put hard news on soft news and vice versa.
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