An introduction to the news The news is a way of gaining information on either local or worldwide events. There are many different outlets for this, some more trustworthy than others, some more popular than others and some more tailored than others. Many of the big news outlets occasionally have subsidiary outlets for different subjects for example BBC News has BBC Sport, Sky News has Sky Sports News, etc. Sports can often be very opinionated when it comes to delivering news and so it is a lot harder to obtain consumers, the most popular place for sports news in the UK, or at least one of, is Sky Sports News. This is because they make it fun to watch and so they can even attract many non-sport fans. A report I watched on YouTube shown them interview the comedian Jack Whitehall on the events in the football world. Being the comedian he is he used his own approach to this and made the interviewers laugh. The interview took place on the 31st of January 2017 on Sky Sports News HQ. It was on transfer deadline day and the reporter asked Jack on the opinions of his favoured club’s transfer activity. Jack kept going off topic and the news reporter went with him but kept directing the conversation back to football. For visuals, they just used the Sky Sports News studio, which is very complicated on the eye for a newbie watching the show, but it is very iconic for the regulars. There was a lot of speech so audio quality was important; to achieve good audio quality, SSN used lavaliere microphones. I feel like this is important, due to the busy routine of the studio, it is important that the audio is focused to the conversation. In addition, I watched a more local news report – this was to see how ‘popularity’ of news effects the quality or techniques used. I presumed that ‘ITV Anglia News’ wouldn’t spend as much time focusing on fancy graphics or making everything look good, compared to the likes of Sky Sports News. I was right; the news broadcast I watched was broadcasted on the 22nd February 2016. ITV Anglia always start their shows with the same intro that has been the case for many years now. It’s nothing fancy, just a few video tiles moving round with their iconic intro music in the background. The newsreaders for this broadcast were Jonathan Wills and Becky Jago. What they did was introduce the sequence, as well as providing voiceovers for several different shots. What stuck out to me was the importance of staying focused as a newsreader. Becky and Jonathan only ever looked at each other or the camera during their sequence. Also, newsreaders must speak in a clear voice and be confident in their speech. Of course, this could lose the interest of the viewer if it’s not done right. A lot of preparation goes in to news reports, but sometimes these preperations will need to take place quickly. An example of news prep is the idea of ‘prospects’ which are different news stories that may appear in the broadcast. Typically, news broadcasts follow a ‘hit them early approach’ meaning that they will show any sensitive news (i.e. Crime) first, before ending on a more positive news story. In between stories, they will have differing transitions. Some, longer broadcasts, may skip to ad breaks, although this isn’t common. Most broadcasts will just skip back to the presenters in the studio between shots.
It’s important that news reporters can break down and dissect information quickly as and when necessary. The news side to media is all about rapidity. The public want news and generally speaking, they won’t worry too much about checking the most reliable outlet. Due to all news outlets being similar, Galtung & Ruge wrote down a few of the typical values that will feature in a news article or broadcast.
Of course, there’s a lot of controversy suroounding the news industry. It’s sometimes accused of not doing what it should be doing. The public watch or read the news to hear about the exact details of an event but, just how can a handful of people be trustworthy enough to obtain information from? There’s a problem with how ‘biased’ a news report can be. Meaning, how much it reflects the opinions of the news-giver, rather than the facts of the actual event. There’s an idea called ‘bias through selection and omission’, which means that the writer or presenter of the news will ‘cut corners’ to warp the news in their way. For example, if a sportsperson were to give an interview and they say just one thing which could cause speculation, the news reporter will ignore everything else they said and just focus on that one thing. Particularly with newspapers, the placement of news is also important. Naturally, more people will read what’s on the front of a newspaper than what’s in the middle or at the back. News outlets can use this to their advantage by placing the most interesting news at the front, in the hopes of enticing potential consumers.
Similarly, the headlines are equally as important as placement. In this era of social media, a lot of people may share news stories based on the headline alone, without reading the article or watching the video itself.