From ethical point of view only one angle is there, and that is POSITIVE ANGLE"

You only tell 

Is it good to report : the glass is half empty or half full

I also teach journalism writing and also have this problem.  Beginning news writers have two problems:  1) What is newsworthy? and 2) How do we organize a news story?

I tell students there is no perfect definition of news, but generally it is something that it new, or different, or changing, and that it must also be something recent, or recently discovered.

Students always seem to want to begin their story with background, and it is a struggle to get them to begin with several of the "5 Ws."  I tell them that they would not write a story about a city council meeting and begin with "The city council convened at 7 pm and recited the Pledge of Allegiance."  Rather, they must say the most important thing that they did during the meeting.

I keep repeating that they need to write specific factual information and say where the facts came from (if they are not widely known and easily available).  

I tell students that News is always NEW. The start time and pledge are OLD aspects of a city council meeting. After they learn that I start talking about news values.

Whatever we tell the students it should be interesting and always the News should be new,

Good guidance from Michael Marek.

One of my preferred teaching methods is positive reinforcement. Khairun, have you tried having students tell you during class the single most important thing that transpired from an event most, if not all, students are familiar with (the city council meeting, or an event at the university, something that happened at the local or national level, etc.). No generalizing, no summarizing, no beating around the bushes: Have them tell you the single most important thing. As they do this, acknowledge the correct answer (perhaps even reward it--extra credit opportunity?), and explain why "incorrect" answers are incorrect.

Hope this helps. Good luck!

--Simon

I have never teached, but I have personally found this problem when doing science journalism myself, and therefore I have come to find some tips that can be useful in this situation:

- First of all: is not about "new" strictly speaking, is about "interesting". This relieves some tensions.

- Second: "Interesting" means different things for different people;

- The most important implication of this is "what is interesting to you might not be interesting to others"

- Therefore, you have to carefully think about who is going to receive this news, and what may they find interesting in them. That is: you have to think about the recipients of the information you are going to select in order to select it. You must contextualize what you are talking about, you must know to which environment you are talking to. 

-Another tip: grow up, not everybody knows what you know! So things you don't consider new or interesting any more... might be for other people. Share your knowledge, try to be generous with it.

Answering to the initial question, from my point of view: the "news angle" is probably ever-evolving concept, which is new to each situation and any given pair of information sender and receivers. Therefore, it might proof useless to try to "teach" it, and the more we can do is give the students all possible tools to be able to adapt to any type of situation, analyze it, extract the interesting bits of information and their potential targets and then work hard in giving this bits the proper shape...

Hope this helps

very happy new year 2015 to everybody!

The news angle is the most important aspect of the news story that the journalist wants to convey to his readers at any particular time. Of course, for example a developing story may have more than one news angle. Do tell the student that the most compelling and interesting part of that story at that particular time for those particular readers is the news angle.

What may be a good news angle for somebody in Nigeria may not be the same for another person in Norway because they live in different countries with different values.

Hope that this helps out. 

News angle is the important aspect. But as an editor one can decide the news angle of  story in a multi dimensional way. so for a single story there are so amny angles..but finally you can choose the most important one for the Mass or the society...news angle is basically a slope of news. In other words News angle can be defined in terms of News Peg. basically a news has its solid base or foundation..so sstrong bsae will provide a strong peg or angle.

News angle is an important factor in reporting process. A news may have so many angles. News angle implies the particular element, interest or value determining factor that should be given importance in a news story. For instance, in case of road accident, a reporter may report on merely factual angle (numbers and severity of injuries), on the other hand he may focus on human interest if any such as dead of child with his/her mom.

News reporting is a very noble profession because news is the most demanded commodity globally. It is known that news reporting and reception is a fundamental human and democratic right.

     Therefore, it is crucial that journalism students excel in infusing or embedding news values in their news reporting. They should be familiar with social, economic, political, and environmental issues.

      Some news angles are quite obvious or apparent while others require some levels of creativity or creative thinking. In addition, good writing or reporting skills can easily enhance our news angle perspective. There is a need to build up a good stock of vocabulary so as to be a better wordsmith.

      For example, social issues include a wide angle of topics and subtopics such as: culture, gender, community, family, energy, food, water, education, tourism, peace, security, transport, information, health, sports, games, and communication. Each of them has multiple news angles infused in them.

      On the other hand, environmental issues cover: weather, climate, disasters, climate change, clouds, floods, drought, early warning systems, wind storms, seasons, birds, animals, land, and population. The same can be said regarding economic and political issues.

      All journalism students are expected to be acquainted with the letter and the spirit of The Social Responsibility Theory of the Press. I usually encourage students to submit to me their questions or problems orally or in writing before, during, or soon after the formal class lectures. They can do this personally or through their course assignments working groups or a coordinator. It is participatory.

      Understanding what a news angle is begins with following news items or monitoring news bulletins. These normally lead to their progressive understanding what news is. I think the students should be given the opportunity to be familiar with the elements of news as well as news (stories).

     For example, it is important to for them to be guided or instructed to collectively or singlehandedly identify the following factors that usually characterize our general news stories or news items: oddity, controversy, prominence, novelty, uniqueness, exclusivity, rarity, conflict, impact, crisis, or personality. These are very easy to grasp catch words for news story angles.

      Teaching and learning methods should be student-centred as much a practicable with a focus on: oral lectures; news analysis of print and electronic media (radio, television, newspapers, magazines, press releases, wire services such as Reuters, AFP, AP, and Xinhua among others); handouts; question and answer time; class discussions; individual assignments; micro-group assignments; role plays (journalist, reporter, and editor); fieldwork activities (community outreach / research); group class presentations (evaluations or assessments); weekly practice (hand-on exercises); attachments (internships); couching and mentoring; and class seminars or workshops.

      As you may know better, journalism students should be exposed to both theory and practice of journalism or mass communication. News values are taught in both theoretical and practical instructions. It is important for journalism or mass communication students to be with familiar with the common news values in theory and in practice as well. Their work should be assessed regularly.

      Besides, it is also possible for the instructors of journalism or mass communication courses to provide handouts to students or even post them on the lecture room or newsroom wall-charts as part of good journalism professional code of ethics. They master news writing steps from intro to background.

     The students should learn that basic news writing or a good news story is judged by its news values. These are vital for the credibility of the journalist as well as the reputation of a media house or a news medium (outlet).

      The basic requirements are: interest, motivation, and regular practice. In all these, it is still good for journalism students to be reminded of the application of the traditional 5Ws plus H in the practice of reporting and writing a news story. The same applies to the use of an inverted pyramid

      Some journalism students may begin freelance news reporting for print or electronic media or do press releases for PRs departments in some institutions. These are some of the good ways of career development for employment or media consultancy services.Students should be encouraged to run micro-blogs with a focus on news reporting just as community journalists are asked to practice.

     Finally, regular consultations, open information sharing, peer-teaching, practice, student assessment and evaluation are recommended.

If a student cannot understand the news angle then they are breaking the first rule of journalism and perhaps should be advised to consider an alternative career.  I encounter journalism students who cannot tell me what today's lead stories are and I am absolutely baffled by this.  The first rule of journalism is Read the Papers!

After many years in the business I have come to the conclusion that while it is possible to teach production skills the actual journalism itself is a talent.  Its a bit like music, you can teach most people to play the Guitar but the talent to do it really well comes from within.  

I agree with Barry

Barry, this is a really insightful contribution to the skills-vs-talent debate. I've encountered a significant number of students who can 'tick the boxes' academically but have difficulty generating new ideas, or even finessing fresh insights into running stories through analysis. Regular reading of newspapers is tailing off alarmingly and while teachers run the risk of being repetitive, there is no really effective substitute to reading the papers for understanding news angles.

Perhaps a practical approach would be to scheduled an assessment that requires students to compare and contrast the differing treatments of stories in a selection of newspapers on a given day; and also to identify how the treatment of stories either conforms to or confronts the target audience/readership of the publications.

I would suggest reading Robert Entman's Framing.