The discussion about how a certain event becomes a piece of news is a very important one. Numerous authors have already tried to define the criteria that would help editors and journalists decide when faced with this problem – the criteria known as news values. In my master thesis I analyse which of the six chosen news values can be identified in television news on healthcare in the daily news programme Dnevnik. Both the medical professionals as well as the journalists in Dnevnik on RTV Slovenia find that healthcare topics in the news are currently in the forefront. Based on my content analysis I have come to the conclusion that the most frequent analysed news value in Dnevnik on RTV Slovenia is magnitude; namely, a lot of news that have a potential impact on patients. In the field of healthcare the number of negative news prevails; frequently, the news was already published at some earlier point and in more than half of cases the news included representatives of influential elites. The editors and journalists of RTV Slovenia recognise the analysed news values as a part of their criteria when deciding what to include in the programme and what not, while they perceive their role in reporting on healthcare primarily as controlling the cash flow in healthcare, detecting corruption and monitoring the changes in health legislation.
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