Hard news, soft news, ‘general’ news: The necessity and utility of an intermediate classification

Abstract

For at least the past three decades journalism scholars have focused on two types of news — soft and hard — without reassessing these categories or adding to them. The present article investigates whether such neglect is warranted, through a questionnaire and in-depth interviews with 32 journalists and editors from the three main Israeli dailies: Yediot Ahronot, Maariv and Haaretz. The findings argue strongly for a third, intermediate category of news — ‘general news’ — as well as for more rigorous and comprehensive definitions of ‘hard’ news and ‘soft’ news that are here supplied. These three news categories were then tested on 465 news items of the above dailies which led to the categorization of a new newspaper type, lying somewhere between the elite and populist press. Methodological and substantive ramifications of this addition are discussed.