An Introduction to the News

I watched BBC News at 6pm on the 28^th June 2016. The news broadcast covered these stories in this order; politics (relating to the EU referendum vote), the football results, a murder case, the queen visiting the North of Island, the tennis at Wimbledon and finally the weather. The starting sequence was a visual effect made opening, this is like a theme song for a television program, it’s something people recognise and associate the program with. It’s engaging and catches the viewers’ attention as well as being smart and professional looking to match the program. 

The presenters were George Alagiah, was in the studio (Male, he is 60 years old) and Fiona Bruce, was out of the studio (female, she is 52 years old). The role of the newsreader/ presenter is to present the news and to inform the audience as to what the story is about and what is going on.  Necessary skills for a newsreader/ presenter are things such as; being able to think quickly, remember a lot of information, read quickly, and be prepared to change the story at any moment and other related skills

The term news ordering is where the news is ordered so that it will appeal to the audience, so it will keep them watching, listening and reading till the end. The term given to the list of stories that will likely appear on the broadcast is running order. Usually the program editor makes the final decision on what stories goes in and out of a broadcast. The story that is most important will be shown first in a news bulletin and will be shown on the front cover of a paper and magazine, this is also known as the lead story. The other stories appear as a mix, they may seem as important as each other and could be rounded up, however stories that are regional are shown to be more important where they happened. The ability to think and act quickly is important in news as some times the story changes and needs to be updated fast so that the right information is being realised, for example reporting a live sports match change every second and it’s not easy to predict everything that happens, therefor being good at quick thinking and acting can help a lot. On a ‘slow news day’ trivial stories will be publishes as there is a lack of sustainable material. The final story is often used to lighten the mood and usually is introduced as the “and finally…” story, or is a weather/ sport report. The term ‘news values’ determines how much prominence the story is given by the media as well as the attention given by the audience. The G&R that wrote about them would be immanency (big story’s will attract peoples fast) and amplitude (if it has effected a hug group of people then the news will cover it a lot). 

Examples for each G&R (Gultung & Ruge):

Immediacy: The results from the EU referendum where shown as soon as they were known

Familiarity: The EU referendum as they wanted to separate and become independent

Amplitude: 9/11 was a huge disaster that affected a lot of people all over the world

Frequency: A topic that comes up frequently would be politics

Unambiguity: celebrations, such as the queen’s birthday, is a clear and definite thing as it doesn’t change

Predictability: termisom is a predictable topic as people assume who did it

Surprise: topics that have a lot of surprise in things such as murder as even though they come up a lit it’s always surprising how people can do that

Continuity: cases such as child kidnapping are previously defined as news, cases such as the Madeleine mccann case.

Elite nations/ people: topics such as celebrity’s lives (death, gone off the rales, etc.) or things related to countries

Personalisation: a main topic would be anything related to animals as it palls on someone’s heart strings

Negativity: sad topics such as death, war, murder and rape would all be bad news as it effects peoples lives

Balance: usually the ‘and finally…’ story balances out the news, this is usually an uplifting story

Being bias through selection and omission means that an editor can choose whether or not to put a story in, as well as maybe ignoring some details of a story or make it reported in such a way that gives readers/ viewers a different opinion. Examples of this recently would be the vote to be in or out of the EU, some media are bias and want others to share the same opinion which most likely meant that they ignored some details of the other side of the story as well as out the story across to readers/viewers to change their opinion or influence them. Where a story is placed shows it importance, this influences how people also see its importance. On newspapers the most important story is on the front page and the other stories are more towards the end of the paper. However, with radio and television they begin with the ‘less’ important story’s and end with the one that is considered to be most important. 

The headline is usually the must read part a newspaper, often printed big, bold and black to make it stand out, being bias by headline means that they make this misleading or make the story out to be exciting when in reality its not.  

Being bias through shot selection and camera angles means to show someone in a good way or in a bad way. The photos that are chosen can heavily influence the viewers/ readers opinion on the person or an event. The narration of a news reporter can also do the same thing, they misread the situation and a good thing can be made out to be in a bad light.

News media often uses labels and titles when talking about places, people and events. This can be bias again because its making people associate the thing the news is targeting with that name and some sees that in a negative lights. For example by using an ‘ex-convict’ to label someone this could show them in a negative light as it tells people they have done something bad enough to be put in jail. Being bias through use of language means that the news can talk about someone in a negative or positive way to influence how the viewer/ reader sees that particular person. For example for a long time teenagers have been badly represented in the news though words (‘hoodies’, ‘scum’) this generalises all teenagers and associates these words to them.