TV News Essay 2nd Draft

Is Television News A Window Into The World?

 

A typical starting sequence for a news programme is normally transparent images of large important buildings and capital cities this is to show the importance of the news and that it can affect the entire world in a matter of seconds, clocks then appear with the time on it normally to show the time but to also indicate that it’s the news at 10. Images of reporters and other news stories will then be shown and once the starting sequence has finished it turns to the studio normally in a long swooping motion. In the studio there would be news presenters set which normally consists of a smart table in which the presenters sit behind and present the news, behind them is either the news team working so you are able to see that these people are always working hard to get the news to you however this can sometimes be a green screen so what you see behind them and also some of the news stories themselves are not entirely accurate for example although they might tell you what has happened in the story however they will only give the story from one perspective or even though they have done a full interview with someone they will edit it so they can make it look more dramatic or so they can make it say what the news say what they want it to say as the BBC is run by the government. It also gives you a feel that these people are there for you, they are up to late hours in the night to give you the biggest and best news stories, or it’s an overlook of the capital city which is normally green screened. Presenters are normally represented as middle to upper class and are also very well dressed. They talk standard queens English so people everywhere can understand what they are saying and also it’s so they’re not bias to people as it’s a national news programme. The Queens English is the standard English that is used around the country so it people would understand the words that are being said etc. To be a studio news reader you must be able to work well under pressure, being a news reader has been said to be like a swan swimming on water, very graceful on top however flapping a lot under water. This is basically what news readers do they must know exactly what they are doing and keep calm. The show is also constantly changing stories and what they want to do so even though the presenters know what they are doing it can all change, they must do all this as well as around 5-10 people talking in their ear as the show is going on as most of the presenters say, it’s not a job for the faint hearted. There are also field reporters which will be out on location interviewing and getting the story from the people. They will then do links to the studio which will consist of the day’s events and actual footage of what has been going on. Reporters and Presenters must use a certain mode of address, normally all presenters use a very serious tone and speak directly to you, they also use what’s called ‘the queen’s English’ so they are not bias to anyone that is watching the programme. Within the story that is being told they would have cuts to some eye witnesses or experts on the matter to give their opinion and to tell what they saw happen.

 

The news also has to follow certain laws so they don’t discriminate against any kind of people they must be impartial to everyone. Ofcom say ‘to ensure that news, in whatever form, is reported with due accuracy and presented with due impartiality.’ In the BBC legal and regulatory part of their website it says they are not allowed to be biased in any way in the news and this isn’t just for the news this is for everything they have I.E radio stations, Websites everything they must treat everyone equally and the news presenters are not allowed to give their own opinions on a story. The news selection process is not as easy as you would think, it would start off with a meeting in the morning and everyone telling you what’s happened in the world so far, however this is early in the morning and stories might happen during the day so the selection of news stories is always changing. Normally stories are selected for their importance to the viewers. Galtung and Ruge did research into how and why certain stories were chosen and why some news stories were not chosen. Their findings basically found out that the stories were chosen due to the effect and the importance it would have on the audience, for example a small kitten was stuck up a tree wouldn’t be chosen as it only effects a few people where as a celebrity like Michael Jackson dying would be the main story of the day and would be on the news for weeks as it effects such a wide range of people. There is also always the chance of there being breaking news which will interrupt anything the news team has already planned. Things that is very important to the world like when Michael Jackson died it was on the news for weeks. They would try to get a mixture of stories into the news show to make it as impacting on the target audience as possible so an emotional story would be shown and then a story that would make you shocked. Stories that have a high importance level would be told at the start as people want to know the biggest and latest news as soon as possible. There would be a small story that would be quite funny only then would presenters have a small laugh over the story to give you that sense of realism and it doesn’t make the presenters look like ‘robots’ they don’t just sit there and read they’re the same as you so the news can connect with the people that little bit more. All news stories are in fact news packages, once they have the footage and they have edited it they will then add diagrams and pictures etc to either fill the interview or to show something that they are talking about for example is field reporter was talking to the parents of a kidnapped child they would use an editing effect like a dissolve to show pictures of the child so you can see what the child looks like in case you see her/him. All of this hard work can sometime go to waste though as if a more important story comes up during the news broadcast they will drop another entire story to fit this one in, they cannot use the story the next day either as 1: its old news and 2: the footage would show live scenes and they would then be deception to the viewers.

 

By law the news must be accurate, be balanced, impartial and be objective. This is what the news companies/broadcasters want you to think they are doing, really they are subjective. Many people give their opinions in interviews with the news this instantly makes that entire story biased. They will then show you actuality footage of on the scene action however again that footage would have been edited to show you what they want you to see, it gives a representation of reality although it isn’t actually reality. It is clear to see that the news isn’t the entire truth, the interviews and actuality footage would have been edited so you see only what they want you to see, the news is meant to be impartial however in pretty much every interview someone gives an opinion which then makes it biased as you think as an audience because it’s been said on TV and because it’s been said on the news you could start to believe other people’s opinions and not your own.   

 

In the news they attempt to hide the constructed nature of the news the way they do this is through edits and cutaways, for example they would be interviewing someone and perhaps they say something that wouldn’t be allowed on TV or isn’t really anything to do with the story they would edit it out with a cut away this is where they cut the interview and would show some statistics or a picture of someone about the story and the audio of the interview would stop however it is made so you can’t tell that the audio wasn’t meant to stop they do this so the interview and the footage have that realism. They would also have actual footage and a reporter on the scene or field reporters that would do links to the studio to again add to the realism of the footage and the story although the story might not be completely true and there be other factors that the news team did not show. You can see that the news is not entirely true and isn’t a window into the world as they would have you believe it’s actually a very constructed and well planned out process to get the most amounts of views for the TV show. The representation of the news is something you can trust to give you the latest and the actual news but it doesn’t actually do this. None of this really matters although some parts are adapted to get the best reactions out of the target audience. I think you should think as long as I’m getting most of the news does it really matter that some parts are not completely true or seen in a different way? The general public will be able to do nothing about this 1: because not a lot of people actually know the news is a very constructed show they are not going to care.

 

The impact new technology has had on TV news is huge, people are now able to find out what the whole story is and the click of a button. Twitter has had a huge influence on the news as people are able to express their opinions and are also able to find out information, say if there was a story on a celebrity and there were assumptions about them, they could go on Twitter and tell the entire world that the assumptions were either true or false. Pretty much everyone has a smartphone which is connected to the internet and are able to find out huge amounts of information just by typing something into Google. New technology, especially Web 2.0 applications have changed the TV news shows forever, as said before everything about a story can be found out if you research it yourself and normally if you are on Twitter people know about big news before the professional news team do and people around the world already know the news so there would be no need for the news at 10 on BBC.  In my opinion we don’t really need the news to be broadcast anymore, even my nan has laptop that is connected to the internet and everyone now just finds out what they want to know about on the internet, some people might not care about a certain story on the news so they will just look on the internet and see what is happening or research the news that they actually care about. The news is meant to be objective as it is supposed to present the audience with truthful, honest and accurate information.