My news essay was chosen to be made into a video, but due to technical difficulties I am only left with the script, my teacher said it would be okay to submit this instead.
Just before I submitted my script, me and my teacher, sean went through it and made some additional notes to go towards this paper:
Accuracy, balance, impartiality, objectivity
All these basically mean the same thing. Television news is regulated by Ofcom and the BBC Royal Charter and these give a set of rules to abide by, called the ‘impartiality’ regulations.
Subjectivity, opinion, bias
These are almost the opposite of the terms above. This means giving your own opinion. This is not supposed to happen in news but actually the people who choose what is to go on the news – they are actually giving their own opinion of what is important enough to go on the news. For example, someone could not like sport and not consider it important enough to report, but it is still on the news. How does a news story get selected in the first place? Two sociologists Galtung and Ruge asked this question and they brought it down to 12 factor which they called news values. They included ‘elite nations’ which is how some countries, like a third world country such as Bangladesh, if there was something which killed many people, but at the same time something in America which killed slightly fewer people, it would be the American story which would get on the news. Another of the values was ‘elite persons’. It depends on how high up a person is in society. If a celebrity dies of old age it will be more likely to get on the news.
Representation
The reason the news HAS to be biased is because it shows a representation of reality – it is not actually showing reality itself. Therefore because someone has to choose what goes on the news, the show includes a hidden set of values about what is worth showing.
Realism and narrative
News tries to convey that it is real. In actual fact to do this it uses some of the conventions that are more common to fictions, like reaction shots (noddy shots), establishing shots etc. News stories are often actually structured like fictional stories too – they often have a hero, who faces a problem and goes on a quest to solve it. In class we watched a news report about the fact that house repossessions had doubled. The news gave evidence to this by telling the story of a man, who hadn’t even lost his house yet, and his ‘quest’ to try and keep his house. Using all these conventions that we associate with fiction raises the question of whether what the news shows us is truth or fiction.
Alright so today I am going to read define some words for you, give you examples, and even have a little fun along the way. So the first term when understanding issues relating to factual programming for television is accuracy. According to the Oxford dictionary, accuracy means (show term for accuracy on screen) “The quality or state of being correct or precise.” in news terms this obviously means that an article needs to be 100% fact checked before going on air, if not you’d just be lying to people for 3 ½ minutes, you can’t just be on the news like:
CUT TO NEWS ROOM
“Hi I’m chad chad-son, here with the latest news. A local man was attacked by a feral tiger, he thought he saw, we have him on the scene right now, let’s have a look.”
“I’m pretty sure I dat dem dere tiger was after me, he started clawing at mah shoe, and uh-“
“I’m sorry sir we’re going to have to cut you off because the tiger you were describing was actually. A cat…. We were going to have more info on this story to fill up another 4 minutes of air time but, yeah….. Here are some funny cat videos.”
CUE FUNNY CAT VIDEO FOR TWO SECONDS, SCREEN TURNS GREY, MIKEY WALKS ON AND SAYS
Okay, that was a little over dramatic, but you get the picture. Make sure you spend a lot of your time checking over your sources to make sure that they’re all correct.
CUT TO MIKEY STANDING ON ONE LEG
Our next term is balance, according to the dictionary, balance means “To keep or put (something) in a steady position so that it does not fall: "a mug that she balanced on her knee". This could mean
CUT TO MIKEY BALANCING A TRAY OF THINGS WITH 1 FINGER WITH AUDIO STILL PLAYING
Trying to keep an even distribution of weight, but in this circumstance, I’m pretty sure it means to keep the flow of news casting and to make sure each news article has its specific time spot.
CUT TO CLOSE UP OF MIKEY
Okay so it’s like this, I have 15 seconds to finish this taking about this. To keep this video short and paced I’ve decided to time myself to create a much smoother final product, oh I guess I didn’t have to rush that part, I’ve still got plenty of time… so… seen any good movies recentl- EXPLOSION!
CUT TO BLACK SCREEN WITH ONLY AUDIO
Okay so what I was trying to get at there is that even though you are being timed, there is absolutely no need to rush, the news broadcasters will take in account the average words per minute to see how much time is needed per slot.
CLOSE UP OF MIKEY
Another thing needed to be taken to account for is impartiality, this means that you need to weigh both views equally, BBC news does this very well due to the fact that they make sure everybody expresses their opinion and at the end of the segment, they never say which side of the argument they’re on. Although shows like Fox News aren’t very impartial towards certain people because of their broadcaster’s political, or religious standpoint, and usually stand with the people who believe in what they believe in.
The next term is objectivity, which means ‘judgment based on individual personal impressions and feelings and opinions rather than external facts.’ it uses the audiences, and sometimes even the newscaster’s prejudices to create a negative image towards a certain race, religion, or political stand view. An example of this could be a white man giving his views on something important and everybody agrees because he is at that age, sex, and race that most people are more atoned to listen to, whereas if an old black woman gives the same point of view, not as many people are going to listen because of her race, sex and age, it just show that humans are incredibly bias towards each other, although BBC News’ policy makes sure that everyone has an equal opportunity.
CLOSE UP
The next term on the list is subjectivity, This sort of falls into the same category as the previous term, it basically means judging a book by its cover, its basing your opinion on someone by the way they look, or talk and because you see these people on a 2D screen without looking at the stone facts, you’re not actually getting to know these people in the third dimension. Let’s take a look at what’s going on in America. (CUE MITT ROMNEY) Here’s mitt Romney, sure he looks smart and snappy in that suit and tie, nice haircut, well groomed. He ran for president, but no one cared that he was profiting from corruption, fraud, and racketeering. (CUE CHARLES RAMSEY) And here’s this guy, Charles Ramsey, you may have seen him as he has been celebrated as a hero, and he should be for saving the life of Amanda berry, who was abducted ten years ago and the lives of many other girls, and just because of his looks they decide to bring out his domestic violence record and try and shame him on national television. When he was interviewed he said “I knew something was wrong, when a little pretty white girl ran into a black man’s arms, dead giveaway” and sure in that neighbourhood black people could have a negative rapport.
FADE TO BLACK
I’m now going to rattle off the rest of the terms one by one ,the next item on my list is opinion (in big words on screen OPINION) which means a view or judgement not necessarily based on knowledge, a newsreader can have their own opinions, they can express these but they can’t go on the news and say it’s a stone fact like they go “this just in, I think that the Labour party is correct and no other party has any valid points” you can’t do that because it’s not giving all the other political parties a chance.
The next term is bias, we’ve gone on a lot about bias and it basically means prejudice against one thing, person, or a group of things, so it again sort of falls back on opinion again, all news channels have to try not to be bias but because of the little time to broadcast, they only have time to focus on the most important stories, which cause people to get angry that something in their local area wasn’t shown.
The final term is representation, and how the news represents the people making the news, you cannot when talking about someone, just list all of their negatives and give the audience the idea that this person is bad, but at the same time you can’t just list all of a person’s positives and try to convince the audience that they’re a saint. You need to represent these people in a way that doesn’t make the audience think the wrong thing about them.
Now we move onto understanding codes and conventions of factual programming for television, the first term in this category is studio news readers, a studio news reader nower days needs to look smart and clean, their posture needs to be perfect, not slouched, and they need to talk in a clear accent that doesn’t sound stereotypical of a certain group of people, this will give the audience the impression that they’re getting the news from a higher power, and that it’s almost like a privilege to receive this information.
The next term is field reporters, we have Mikey out on the scene to tell you the details,
CUT TO MIKEY OUTSIDE
“Thanks Mikey, the reason they use field reporters to tell you about the story is to make the audience think that since they’re on the scene, they have first-hand information and the news is likely to be far more accurate, this is Mikey for east Norfolk, Gorleston”
CUT TO MIKEY BACK INSIDE
The next term is links to the studio; this sort of connects to field reporters as they use the links to communicate with each other. Linking back to the studio can be a difficult task, I couldn’t find the footage myself, but there was a behind the scenes look at a news cast and it showed what the people behind the cameras were saying into the mic’s. At one point this guy, Chris peacock, the field reporter, loses connection to the studio so the guys on the mic are saying, ‘keep talking Chris, keep talking, we lost the signal’ and the field reporter just starts talking more and more about what happened, trying to stretch it out as long as possible until they retrieved the signal. This shows that if you want to get into the news business, you need to keep calm in tense situations, and you need really good improvising skills.
The next term is mode of address to viewer, this means the way in which media texts talks to the audience, since this is news they’re going to talk formal and theyre going to face the camera to give the impression that the reporter is talking directly to you. You can’t have a news broadcaster come on like
CUT TO MIKEY BEHIND A DESK PLAYING NEWS MUSIC
This is the ITV news with ben-efit fraud
“O-right jubblies, here’s the news. A man was found dead today in the woods, when the police asked de man what e’ was doing in the woods, he ad no comment cause e’ was dead.”
CUT BACK TO MIKEY
This would make the entire corporation seem ridiculous and an unreliable source for news.
the next term I’m going to let my clone tell you about, so Mikey 2, what can you tell me about this term “thank you Mikey, the next term is interviewing, now interviewing is used to give the audience a professional opinion, or the interviewee can give information about the certain topic, like in 2009 when they turned on the large hadron collider, everyone was panicking, thinking a massive black hole was going to destroy the earth so the BBC got Stephen hawking in their studio and interviewed him on why this wouldn’t ever happen. It sort of gives the audience a little reassurance as well” thank you Mikey, you can go now, (CLONE MIKEY STANDS UP) “thanks, when do I get paid” *sigh,
MIKEY PLACES MONEY ON TABLE, CLONE MIKEY PICKS IT UP AND LEAVES
The next term falls into the previous term again, experts and witnesses; an expert is someone who has comprehensive knowledge of a skill in a specific area. These people are used in news programs to give the audience more of a grasp on what’s going on, whereas a witness is a person who sees an event, these people are interviewed, or just asked questions about what they saw, this give the audience a first-hand idea of what happened through the eyes of an everyday average Joe, this also makes the viewer’s relate to the witness and gives them a trusting bond.
The next term is report structure, this is basically the resources and that were used in the making of the news item, like pre-production work, a report structure is used to manage the reporters story and to make sure that they don’t become disorganised and end up giving out false information on national television.
The next term is actuality footage and this means- wait hold on, we have breaking news, a man was found throwing a sandwich at another man we have amateur footage taken by the perpetrator.
CUT TO FOOTAGE OF MIKEY THROWING SANDWICH AT LIAM
CUT TO MIKEY INSIDE
So yeah as you can see actuality footage is amateur, or professional footage taken by the public or the news cameras and this gives the audience a first-hand account of what happened and it also helps the audience make a decision on who was right or wrong.
The penultimate term is realism, now realism means to except something for what it is and being prepared to deal with it accordingly, field reporters are practically trained to deal with these situations,
CUE CNN REPORTERS BOMB VIDEO
I mean take this guy here, he’s reporting in Gaza and watch how he reacts to an air strike.
Immediately this guy follows the safety procedures and when he is told it is safe to come up, he keeps reading the news like nothing happened, but then again there are some reporters that aren’t so graceful
CUE REPORTER SCARED OF ROOSTER CLIP
Okay so our final term is narrativisation, this is when the reporter narrates over the footage to give you an idea of what’s going on in the clip
CUT TO FOOTAGE OF COLLEGE WITH AUDIO FROM ME
This give the audience the impression that the news is a story that is being told to you from a very formal person and that, again you are very privileged to hear what comes out of these people’s mouths, like you were a new born babe, and were being told a bedtime story from the queen.
CUT TO MIKEY OUTSIDE WALKING TOWARDS CAMERA
and usually, the segment would end with the news correspondent slowing walking towards the camera giving a wrap up on the clip, Mikey Tibble, East Norfolk Sixth Form College, Gorleston.
FADE OUT
