Events are seen as the actions of individuals. Incompatibility between the Government's policies and the Opposition's is presented as a personal showdown between the two party leaders, especially if there is sexy footage of the two engaged in a parliamentary slanging match, complete with cheers and jeers. Clearly the news is peopled by real individuals, but in representing events through people the news is following the conventions of classic realism, for it assumes that the way to construct an understandable and authentic version of the real is through the actions, words and reactions of the individuals involved. Social and political issues are only reported if they can be embodied in an individual, and thus social conflict of interest is personalised into conflict between individuals. The effect of this is that the social origins of events are lost, and individual motivation is assumed to be the origin of all action.
Bad news is good news.
Bad news has many of the other characteristics as well - it may be unexpected, unambiguous, consonant with our general expectations about the world, it may be 'big', e.g. a major catastrophe etc. Entertainment value would seem another obvious candidate for the list - if a news item isn't entertaining then it's not covered. The implication in many studies of news values seems to be that they are virtually objective factors, to which journalists and editors react reflexively. According to this view news items are subjected to a gatekeeping process which is apolitical and unbiased. The news professionals rightly insist that those who shout 'bias' be able to define objective truth in a definitive manner.