| For analysing TV news in particular you need to understand:
- what news values are and how they form a news agenda
- what other factors (e.g. time, cost, ownership) affect the
gathering and presentation of TV news
- technical codes (camera angles, use of sound, graphics)
News has its own codes and conventions, and is instantly recognisable
as such when you encounter it when channel hopping. News is
seen as a high status genre of programming - much more so than
soap opera, for instance - with a high level of responsibility
towards its audience. Journalists take pride in following a
code of ethics, and will try to balance public interest with
the demands of the network, not always an easy job.
Read the Radio Television News Directors Association Code of
Ethics here (from Canada) to see what the issues are where a
journalist might need ethical guidance.
TV News camerawork
TV news has a style of camerawork all its own. We are familiar
with the concept of the news crew, consisting of a reporter,
camera operator(s), and sound recordist(s), arriving at situations
as news happens, in order to beam back the most accurate and
up-to-date pictures to viewers. For an important news event,
footage is broadcast through a live feed, giving little or no
opportunity for editing, as we would normally understand it.
We accept that TV camerawork is often hand held; that we may
not get the same quality of image (largely because of lighting)
that we are used to with scripted drama. However, it is worth
considering that these images are mediated. Decisions have been
made on a very basic level about where to go, when to switch
the camera on and off, where to point it, who to talk to and
how to frame shots. TV crews have miniature outside broadcast
units containing the latest technology, and many reports are
edited in the field. TV news footage should never be interpreted
as the simple recording of an event, no matter how objective
the camera operator tries to be. The images are selected to
tell a story, and should be judged as subjective, even before
the commentary of a reporter or anchor further fixes the meaning
of what we see and hear. The reality we see in TV news is sometimes
as elaborately constructed as a Hollywood movie.
TV News Language
Although TV news relies heavily on images to communicate stories,
language is just as important. Headlines are read at the beginning
of each bulleting and each story, and these headlines are as
significant as their counterparts in newspapers, often employing
the same sort of figurative language, or stylistic devices such
as alliteration. Newsreaders' scripts are carefully written
to communicate the facts, as are reporter’s posts: the
recent Hutton investigation revolved around a BBC reporter not
using language carefully enough, with drastic consequences.
TV News Institutions
As well as analysing the news itself, you should be aware of
the institution, which has produced that news, and the criticisms
aimed at it’s reporting. News is a very political media
form, and you must read it, and those who criticise it, very
carefully. TV news, like any other media form, is packaged to
appeal to an audience, the only difference perhaps being that
we cannot get our TV news from such a wide variety of sources
as we can other media. TV news organisations are, by and large,
commercial operations (even the BBC!) and must operate within
budgets, and ideally turn a profit from advertising. News programming
is a vital part of TV scheduling, designed to draw in a broad
audience (prime time news often gets the biggest ratings of
an evening), and is subject to competition from other news providers.
News presenters represent the values of the organisation they
work for onscreen. It is always useful to analyse the appearance
of those who are given the responsibility of communicating the
news - are they smartly dressed, with conventional and conformative
suit and hair? Or are they slightly less predicitable, reporting
from a dangerous location in casual clothes with hair in disarray?
Their age, accent and ethnicity will give an indication of the
range of audience a news organisation is trying to attract.
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