An Introduction to the News

Introduction the the News

The news program I watched was BBC news at six on the 31st of June, the starting sequence uses a globe with all the countries in the world this represent the world news this programs shows and the audio is a beep sound that acts like a countdown to the end.

The stories on the news started with the Boris Johnson leaving the conservative leader race which lasted for about 15 minutes as it is a big news story for us in the UK the next story was about the Governor of the bank of England talking about the economy plummeting and how it won’t be getting better over the summer after that it went onto how Gatwick and Heathrow projects will be starting in the next few weeks and how important air travel is now we are out of the EU, the next story was about the Battle of the Somme and how health care for missing limbs and war wounds were reaching an all-time high after the war and finally the last story was about Andy Murry got into the 3rd round in the Wimbledon. The weather was at the end of all the program.

The presenters in the broadcast were Sophie Raworth who is a female aged 48 and Stewart White who is 72 years old and male. Their role on the program is to tell you the information for each story and they are not allowed to give a biased side when they tell the information. The skills you need to be a news presenter is to have a clear voice and Introducing and hosting programmes, reading the news, interviewing people and reporting on issues and events.

Running order is when you chose what story should go first and last this is important as this keeps the viewers from staying tuned to your news program. The name given to the stories that will likely appear on the broadcast is running order. A story that affects the world or really close/in our county will be first in the news but the program editor makes the finale decision on what will be in the news and in which order. A slow news day is when not much exciting stories are going on so there are boring stories shown on the news, the last story on the news is called an “and finally” which is normally a lighter hearted story. It is good to think and act quickly in the news as it changes all the time so is important to be flexible. 

News values determine how much importance a news story is given by a media outlet, and the attention it is given by the audience.

Galtung and Ruge’s list of news values

Impact:

Threshold is about how big it impacts the whole world and a news story like Us open an investigation after a Tesla fatal crash caused by the self-driving technology would affect the world as tesla cars are sold every.

Frequency stories which are events such as motorway pile-ups, murders and plane crashes which occur suddenly like this story about how one killed by Taiwan accidental missile.

Negativity new stories about death, tragedy, bankruptcy, violence, damage and natural disasters are more exciting than good news like this story about how a woman was dragged by the train as her hand was trapped between the doors.

Unexpectedness is a story out of the ordinary it is more likely to make it into the news like the story about how the ozone hole starts to heal which is bizarre as we wouldn’t expect it to get better.

Unambiguity Events which are easy to grasp make for better copy than those which are open to more than one interpretation, or where understanding of the implications depends on first understanding the complex background to the event.

Bias through selection and omission is when an editor is bias by choosing if he want a news story in or not they can also chose to ignore some details to make it a more one sided story making your opinion more on their side.

Bias through headline which can be misleading to catch people’s attention by making a more exciting headline this is shown in the image below. Obama obviously wouldn’t say he has a big problem with white women which is really bizarre to say in the title of a news report.  

Bias in photos, captions and camera angles can cause a heavy influence of your perception of the subject this is shown in the image below. You would think in the first slide they are holding someone hostage which is really negative but when you see the whole image you can see they are giving him water.

Bias in placement/ order can change what you think is an important story a newspaper editor can chose what story is on the front page and what is deep in the paper. Different papers are more negative then overs sometime giving opposite sides of a story.

Bias through names and caption can be very negative on the person they are labelling this is shown in the image below which shows how they call other people terrorists but when someone in their country does something as bad they aren’t called a terrorist.

NY Daily News Lists NRA’s LaPierre Among American Terrorists: The Daily News equates someone who has been defending Americans’ right to own a gun for protection with those who wanted to kill Americans.

Bias through use of positive and negative language can change your opinion on the subject. The NHS is probably not in meltdown they are just exaggerating to get attention.