Window on the World

Is television news a ‘window on the world’?

The starting sequence of the news is the first part we get to see. In terms of watching the starting sequence we get the idea that we are seeing a window of the world through the news. The starting sequence involves many icons, which we associate with the news like seeing the world. After the starting sequence then next part we get to see of the news is the presenters and the set. The set of the news station is key as we get to see it as if we are watching right in front of them so nothing is being kept secret from us and so this makes the news accurate in the sense of that the news channel wants to show us everything possible to make us feel that we are just looking out a window and seeing into the set. When we hear the studio news readers talk we understand that the mode of address to the viewer is direct and formal, this presents to us that they are important and accurate and they have important information to inform us about.

 Television should be presented with a balance of good news and bad news as people like to find out about people who have died, and as the program should be laid out in a way that the hard hitting stories are first and gently getting better to hear about for example from a murder to a lottery winner. Also it shouldn’t be presented in a biased way. The presenters do not show any emotion or there opinion towards any of the news as this will manipulate our views on it, so the presenters should be objective an present the news so if we saw it through a window, no views except out own. This links to impartiality as the news channel doesn’t want to broadcast news that will affect a person views on the subject for example broadcasting news that affects the views of a religion. Ofcom provide this definition of Due Impartiality "Due" is an important qualification to the concept of impartiality. Impartiality itself means not favouring one side over another. "Due" means adequate or appropriate to the subject and nature of the programme, Ofcom are putting across that you can put the opinion towards the subject only if it is appropriate. Legal issues are the main part producers have to take in before they can broadcast the news and the impartiality of the news is one of the main things to look out for as if the news would put their views on top of the news we wouldn’t be watching the news as it is a window on the world. There are many other laws to follow like the Prevention of Terrorism Act and the Official Secrets Act, these both are laws that the news channels have to follow as they could put the security of the nation in danger.

 

 So to regulate the news there are regulatory bodies, two of these are Ofcom and the BBC. Ofcom and the BBC both are regulators but Ofcom is the main regulator, Ofcom regulates TV, Radio, Mobiles and postal services. The main purpose of the BBC is that it is a public broadcasting service.

 There are many ways that the news can be selected to be broadcast. A story must contain enough of the Galtung and Ruge’s new values to even get a chance to be broadcast, a few of these news values are Elite Persons, this means that the news has to include someone that is important to us. A more frequent new value is Negativity as people like to be informed about bad news and bad news is good news. Another way a story can be selected is by the Economics of the news production, at the start of the financial year for the production teams they get allocated a budget and the team have to decide which stories they would like to cover better by having more money. An example of this is at Tiananmen Square in 1989 when the protests where ongoing the BBC and ITV had to decide whether to spend a lot on this and the BBC did and had a better story on the news which had links to the studio and field reporters on scene instead of just having a reporter on the phone.

This links to another point of selection, the BBC and ITV know how worthy the news will be as they compare to their competition and they compare how the story is presented as one may use experts and witnesses of this news whereas one won’t. After the news has been selected the team will have a team there to film the selected news and when the team have finished filming they need to construct the news and they construct this news by either two ways of narrativisation, they both have the same structure but they are expressed from different angles, one has normality and then a sharp enigma and then a smooth path to resolution and finally a closure whereas the other has a Hero and a Agent of change and then the quest is created and finally a closure. This is like a window on the world as if we were watching for example a house fire out of our window we know the normality before it happened, then we see the house on fire, then the fire brigade turn up to put the fire out and finally we end with a smooth closure everyone is safe and the fire is out. Another construction technique the editors can use is hiding the constructed nature of the text, in another way of expressing this is realism of the footage, when we watch news we see some scenes, where you see the reporters interviewing someone then they cut to a picture or video of what the person is relating too while they have the voice over the top of the video, this hides the person talking about that subject so we don’t get to see their feelings, we are just focused on one subject eg: a photo. This is not as real as we would see this through a window and so this puts a negative point towards us that the editors are trying to manipulate us. Most editors describe actuality footage as a building block to creating the news as they edit the original footage to manipulate us. This is not a sample of reality but in fact far from it, as the person who is watching can tell that the video footage has been selected and edited together to create a viewpoint that the editor wants to put across.

Overall the news report structure is key to us as we can determine whether this is a window on the world and how well the representation of this news is put across. I believe that that most of the points put across matter as without all the news values/ structure and the construction we would not understand and therefore we would not have and interest in the news. In some ways we can’t do anything about how the news is presented to us as it is the broadcasters choice how they want their news to be seen. The only way we can do something about the news is by reporting parts to Ofcom and they will try to regulate this, I believe the only way this could be report is if the news is impartial and does harm people views towards things.

Many news reporters say now that it is not them who collect and find the news that it is the general public as now our generation is heavily involved with technology so people will broadcast their findings on social networking sites and blogs. The main social networking site that reporters believe is helping them is Twitter as people put across their own opinions from their finding and this can help the editors while creating a news package. Its not just the evolution of social networking sites it is also how technology in phones is developing and if you saw someone or something you would more than likely take a photo of this happening which also helps the editor create their news package. I believe that this does make a difference to how the news is presented as this is saying anyone can create the new effectively so it is more understandable that the news is a window on the world as anyone can create the news.