Introduction to the News

Induction to the news

The broadcast I watched was BBC news live at 10-11am The BBC opening graphics of the globe symbolize that they do global news broadcasts. It shows they are also professionals.

Lead story: Ed balls slated Tories planned cuts calling them "extreme & nonviable"

Other stories:

David Cameron pledges 500 new free schools(even though that costs so much of tax payers money)

Britain's anti-terror scheme is a "toxic brand" and "ineffective"

Owners has "no doubt" crufts dog was poison

Solar plane takes maiden voyage around planet

Teenagers killed in horror crash named

Mother of alleged rapist in India lynched by angry mob

Syrian family of young girls seek apology from MET

Baby survives fourteen hours in Utah river


TV news presenters

News presenters are the face of the news. They sit on a sofa or behind a desk and present the news to the viewing public, they link to stories and the other reporters who are out in the field. They read off an auto-cue and help the audience to understand some of the news reports that are just images. They use specially selected language including different words and phrases to catch and hold the audiences attention for the duration of the programme. The newsreader does essentially the same job as the presenter.

In the broadcast I watch it was mostly just Ed Ball's talking about the government spending cuts and how Labour will do much better, and so on. The presenter was mid-thirties, white & male. The presenter's job is to present the news to the general public. They also narrate and explain some of the images in the news story. A news reader has to be able to appear confident and have the ability to project their voice to a level where the viewer can hear it but it doesn't sound like they are shouting( mics help with this) They obviously need to be able to read and speak English fluently & it helps if they used a formal and friendly tone with professional language(not slang) All these qualities will help to keep the audience interested and watching, otherwise they may switch over the competition.

News ordering is the process in which the running order of the broadcast is ordered in terms of importance and relevance to their audience. Once the news has been ordered it gets put into a running order, this is how it will appear in the broadcast. Often the lead story is something that's going to catch and hold peoples attention, another way the lead story is selected is if it's in the public interest to hear about it, but mainly it's based off relevance and importance to the audience. The other stories will appear after the lead story, once again, it's all based on relevance and importance to the audience, often the stories that come after the lead aren't as shocking/ attention grabbing, but are enough to keep people watching, however sometimes these other stories can be grouped together into a news round up, which is a very quick summary of the news stories. The lead story will often be the longest story of the broadcast. News readers have to be able to think and act quickly when presenting news, if something comes to light while they are on air they have to be able to quickly report it to the audience. Similarly when they are reading the news they need to be able to do so fluently and confidently to keep the audience interested, otherwise they may switch over to the competition. A "slow news day" is when nothing of wild importance has happened that day, similarly if nothing in the public interest has come to light the news will often report on more trivial matters, while a slow news day is bad for the news companies it's good for the general public as people often take it to mean nothing disastrous has happened such as a earthquake or something similar. And finally the last story is often used to brighten up the end of the broadcast, often this will be something that's much lighter and sometimes fairly trivial, more entertainment-like news than actual news. This section is called an "and finally".
Gatlung & Ruge(G & R) wrote about news values and how it ties it strongly with newsworthiness.(Click here to see the factors)

One of the most recent & frequent news stories that seemingly covers all of the different news values is the on-going war with Islamic State(Isis) I have hyper-linked to the story on BBC news and I will now explain how they fit with the different values.
Isis are in the news almost everyday & everything they do is negativity, which means that people are more likely to stand up and take notice of what they doing, which means they will then started watching the news more frequently to hear the latest about them. Isis, especially their decapitations are extremely unexpected, no-one expected them to start cutting peoples heads off on camera, even if they are radical extremists. Everything they do is unambiguous, it is clearly evil and there's no two ways about it."Jihadi John" has become the face of Isis, this has allowed the media to personalize all of Isis' crimes directly to him, which now has given the public someone to direct their anger towards.
Elite nations and Elite persons also fits into Isis. For example, Britain, America & Turkey have gotten involved with fighting Isis, because, of the various executions & pledging soldiers and resources to fighting Isis, the elite person involved with Isis is, of course, "Jihadi John".

We watched a documentary about the Choles, they were a family of three that were going to have their home repossessed by the bank after they fell behind on their mortgage repayments. The Choles are represented as victims of a demonized banking system that sets ridiculously high prices then takes away the house when they can't pay. The narrative was formed via the use of a voice-over and emotive language. I personally felt mildly bad for the Choles, considering  they were loosing their home and such. But personally I think it's their own fault, they shouldn't be having more kids if they can't keep paying and so on. In a way it's kind of their own fault, so as I said, I don't feel for them in any way shape or form. There wasn't a narrative, the audience was told their names & their situation, and that the man had been looking for help from the council, that was all.

The broadcast I have found was a BBC live broadcast that was Ed Balls speaking about how Labour will try and change all the Torrie governments mistakes with the economy and so on.( It also happened to be mind-numbing dull.) Ed Balls was really represented in any particular light, he was just standing in front of a room full of reporters going on about how he's going to fix the economy(, as I said, mind-numbing dull). There was not much, if at all of a narrative or story to it, it was just a standard press conference. Had their been a narrative it may have made people who were totally in the know with politics confused. This is similar with the story aspect, it was just Ed Balls standing in front of various reporters and news cameras talking about the economy and so on and so forth.  

Bias is when the media selects or omits different parts of the story depending on what they think is newsworthy & what they want to put in the story. This can also depend on what particular political party the news outlet is linked with, for example, "The Sun" is a mainly conservative newspaper, so they will report anything that makes the Tories look good & cast doubt or negative light on their competitors, such as Labour or the Lib Dems. This kind of selection/ omission bias can occur anywhere , but happens most frequently and noticeably in newspapers.

A second type of bias is placement or order bias, this is when a media outlet(usually TV although sometimes newspapers and other types of media) will order their stories in a certain way that makes the audience then think a certain way about any given issue. Referring back to the political parties, and example of this would be if a media outlet was bias towards one such part, e.g Labour, it may air a story about how during the Torrie/Lib Dem coalition government unemployment has risen by 10% & how under the last Labour government unemployment had fallen by 15%. Or something of a very similar ilk, which in turn would cause the audience to believe that the coalition government isn't actually meeting any of its targets or it's breaking promises. Another example of this would be the tuition fees for universities.

Constructing a headline can also be influenced by bias. For example, Mohammed Emwazi or "Jihadi John" was apparently known to the government before he became radicalized and join Isis. So using a headline such as  "Government let Jihadi John leave the country to join Isis" or "Catastrophe as government let Jihad John slip through their fingers" Both of these particular headlines will make people believe the government have failed to stop the spread of radicalization in their own country, once again this makes them look weak and like they aren't doing their jobs properly.

Even something such as what shots & camera angles are used can be influenced by bias. For example, earlier today(19/03/2015) I saw a story about Nicola Sturgeon, the Scottish first minister. It was talking about how shes been a victim of sexist remarks since becoming the first minister. It was a very informal interview, they were walking along a beach on the west coast of Scotland and they even used a couple of shots of her meeting the general public and stroking dogs etc etc, all of this was meant to humanize her, to make people connect wit her more and ultimately feel sorry for her, now that was obviously meticulously planned. That shows how something a simple as shot selection and the camera angles used in those shots can have an impact on what the audience thinks and feels when they watch it.

As with shot selection and camera angles, they names and captions can also be subject to bias. continuing on with my political examples, if the media wanted to make an interviewee seem very important they may include their title such as "Dr John Smith" or something very similar. The caption may also be used in such a way, for example it may read "Dr John Smith, cardiovascular rehabilitation expert" instead of just simplifying it to say "Stroke expert" while they both mean the same thing, the first, longer caption seems far more impressive.

And finally, even the language used in a particular story can effect how it people feel about it. As I said earlier about the headlines regarding Jihadi John, words like "Catastrophe" "Intelligence blunder" and such will make people think and feel a certain way. Another example of this would be unemployment statistics. The news outlets might use words such as "Sky-rocketed" or "plummeted" depending on what angle they're coming from.