TV News Blog Report, Is TV News a window on the world?

Introduction

One of the biggest questions towards the media industry new window is that whether ''TV news is a window on the world?' The question is asking  whether TV news  clearly shows enough or shows every true detail of what is going on around the world without bias? Are they truly presenting the news without putting an expression or opinion toward the audiences mind or using certain words to lead the audience towards a way of thinking while presenting? Do they show both sides or just what they want us to believe and see?



TV news certainly tries to present itself in this way
TV news certainly tries to present itself  in many ways that could represent them as a window to the world, based on three main points e.g. a provider of factual, neutral unbiased, impartial information about the world, which some of this could link to the laws and regulations  (OFCOM and BBC code.)Link to my New reader conotational analysis
(http://kaew-injaimbtec.blogspot.co.uk/Newsreaders-a connotational analysis)



Due Impartiality/ofcom and BBC code of practice

The starting sequence of the BBC News at 10 and the news reader presents itself in this way, due to following the law by government to keep it from being biased. ('Due' is an important qualification of concept of impartiality, this means it must not  favour one side more then other or giving the viewer a certain clue. It's also an appropriateness for each subject or material of the news. |However,  due impartiality doesn't mean you have to give time,each argument or fact equally, instead this depends on the subject and how large the news and the interest given from the audience is.) 
The organization and regulation (BBC Code of Practice and OFCOM ) prevent this from happening. Ofcom regulation act from 2003 allows it to cut any offensive material from the news  to protect the public from any act, speech etc that could cause harm to the viewer e.g. racism, swearing,violent etc.
(source : http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/broadcasting/broadcast-codes/broadcast-code/impartiality/)
(http://www.bbc.co.uk/guidelines/editorialguidelines/page/guidelines-politics-practices-elections/)

However, TV news cannot, simply 'show' reality

There is a reason for the fact that the news is unable to show all reality for certain subjects.
Most of this control comes from government law, broadcasting rules (BBC and Ofcom) and the access to the material including the gatekeeping process, news source, Gultung and Ruge's news values, the news gathering process, the law which prevents certain material from being broadcast, implication of cost of stories, implications of competition between news companies, late breaking stories and technical problems.


The gatekeeping process

The gatekeeper decides which information is able to go forward and which is not, in other words a gatekeeper is a social system  which decides what information, material, goods may enter the system.
This means gatekeepers are able to control the public knowledge of the event by letting some information pass the system but keeping certain information out. In a political system there could be a gatekeeper who are controls the access to position and  regulates the flow of the information and political influence.
Media gatekeeping decisions are based on the news values, organization routine, input structure and common sense.
One of the examples of this is if there is any images or bad language used that could be of harm to the viewer on the actual event, the gatekeeper will have to keep the actual information out but still use certain words to describe the situation.


News sourceSource could be a person, publication, or other document that shows time e.g. CCTV camera, out side journalism sources are also known as ''news source''. Sources include official record, broadcast or publication, government, business, organization, witness of crime and people who are affected and involved with the issue(s) that are happening. Certain sources of some events like business or government are investigated before any report. Without the the investigation, the news reporter usually says something like'' Mr A says that he witness..............''
However, the newspaper's values are very different the the news reporter's values which are stated by the government and mass media.


News values - Gultung -Ruge
News values also known as news criteria; the news determines the time to broadcasting based on the prominence of the event given by the media outlet and the attention given by the audience (public).
The news's decisions and selections for choices of each event can vary widely between cultures.

J Gultung and M Ruge showed that several factors are consistently are applied across news organization. In their seminal study in the areas put forward system describing together are used as definition of ''newworthiness'' focusing on news paper and broadcast news.

Gultung and Ruge also crated a list describing what they believe were significant contributing factors to how the news is constructed.

Their theory argue that the more the news event is accessed is the more likely that it will be reported on in the news paper. There is three of hypotheses are presented by Gultung and Ruge ; the additively hypotheses (the more factor of an information satisfy is the more likely it will be come news), complementality hypothesis (the news event that are different to each other) and the excursion hypothesis (the even that satisfy none or very few will become news).



Other journalism Harcup and O'Niell's values

 

News gathering process
The news gathering process is a process of creating a news story, different type of news stories have a different process e.g. certain news that the public should know have to by research quickly, less of honing and crafting story ideas, talk to the right person (e.g. witness) the write a story.

''soft feature'' story should take more time because it given a lot of time to completed it as it's doesn't need to be reported as fast as possible.














The reporter have three tool to gather the information
1. collecting the data from people who's involved; by talking, interviewing etc to people who have an opinion and knowledge about the story, the story is more interesting when have variety of perspectives.
2.being part of the community; this would help as you know what is going on around very well you could also notice people's daily life connect with your story ideas and keep your eyes open could help to build story from the scratch.
3. Researching; Internet and social network is a large repository of information and could help to narrow down on the ideas. You could also find certain news story from social network and Internet, e.g. shocking news story on 2009 Micheal Jackson, BBC news first gather this news by twitter and check it with other proven fact.


The law which prevent certain material from being broadcast
Prior resistant also refer to as prior censorship or pre-publication censorship, The censorship usually impose by government on the expression before the expression actually take place. An alternative to prior resistant is to take place and appropriate action afterwards, if the expression violate the law, regulation or any other rules.

Prior resistant prevent the censored material, information from being heard or distributed in every way. It's also effected in the number of ways, for example certain material(art work,movies etc) required a license before it can be publish. As if the material refused to be publish , it's a form of censorship as it's provoking from a license.

Sometime to government or other community are beware of a forthcoming on publication on particular subject and seeks to prevent it.

Implication of cost of stories
Implication of the cost on the story is important to the news story, this including to collect information(filming etc), where the story is happening in the worlds(cost of travelling), cost of staff, equipment,copy right on the clips from a news program and cost of license (these are sometimes needed). Sometimes if the cost is out of hand and it's not worth the news they would chose to drop the event.

Implications of competition between news companiesThe competition between company is also important to the news company, most of the news company will chose the topics that are able to collect a wider range of audiences and also chose the right time to public it.
The news company also wanted to be the first to public the news story to get their reputation on being the fastest to get the information across to the public. It's also keep their eyes open to the other news company and look at what they doing e.g. if there see the staff from the other news company filming something they will go over and check it out.


Late breaking stories and technical problem
Late breaking stories is when there is a bigger news (values by the attention given by the public) coming up when they are about to broadcast the original news story. To be able to publish this to the public it's have to fit somewhere between the original news, this mean they might have to shorten certain news down or either take the least important news out.Sometime they even have to interrupted the new live new reporter to reported even interesting news.

Technical issue can become a real deal to the news as it reporting to the public especially when it happen while live camera is functioning it's sometime have to shorten the next TV program that will be shows down as it's have to finish report. When the issue is is happen it's usually improvise on what story should come on next, this decision made by what is more important in the view of editor. One of the example on the issue that could happen while doing live is the camera lost the link to the studio.

This is an example Of BBC news late breaking stories interupting other program





This is an example of late breaking news interupting other news



TV news uses 'fictional' narrative devices to make 'events' into 'stories' 

The news are sometime uses fictional narrative devices to structure event to news stories. By using this method it's will make the audiences(viewer) felt more involved into the story that they are presenting and the audience will felt the way the director want them to feel. On another hand, fictional story footage are mostly directed which mean it's hardly show reality of the true images and also on these footage used certain angles and techniques to make the story line match the title e.g. close up to get emotion, low angle to make the object look small or high angle to make the objects looks big. Fictional type of media text usually only one sided.

One of the example of fictional narrative devices is this clip below.
This video below used the fictional narrative to get the footage(therefore giving the audience more information and make the audience feel like they are more involved) e.g. if the news tell the audiences the 300 birds dies on around one eastern of England it's might not make the audiences feel anything. How ever it they collected all the birds and put it all the gather and explain the reason behind those death the audience will fell bad/sad/awful/sorry etc.

The person who contracted the news is already know what is going on but they have to pretend to do it again to make it more interesting to the audiences.




Actuality footage/image(s) and past tense images used

On the TV news the picture show on the news story isn't always an actuality footage, sometime certain image or footage of the similar event that happened in the past are used. Whether these footage or images will be used is based on the values of the chooser.

On the advantages of the news Chanel like BBC news, they have a special license which allow them to used most of the footage/ image they wanted with out any payment to the owner of the material (source BBC special lisense : <iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/aPXa0tlE_cc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>) but with other news channel like Sky news, it's don't have the special license like BBC news so they have to work out whether it would cost more to go out to film or either buy it from the footage/images store) e.g. if the footage/images must collected from Africa and none of the staff are out there, it's might be cheaper to buy it from the footage/images store.

On another hand these images or footage are not showing the actuality but instead the TV news are trying to represent it as an actuality itself. These may not effected the audience at much/at all but the way the news represented those news story with an old images are not represented it in much of the reality or actuality at all.


Conclusion
From the evidence of my research the news are bias and doesn't matter whether it's prevented from the law or broadcasting rules, it's still class as bias. On certain event like Justin Beber were arrested or the 9/11 truth reflection does matter to the world as much as the audience know what is going on even if it cant get 100% information. However the reflection of the truth story is poor, real picture reason beside it also very important to the audience, without those it's like telling half of the story and leave it the argument and confusion. On another side of this is when event or news story that have to do with government is very important e.g. the government choices on certain object can effected the whole country, the truth reflection on this is very important to the viewer. Without the truth reflection is another way of leading the audience to the way the government want them to think and sometime those news are only show one sided which is class as bias. one of the biggest example for this is The government now wanted to stop people to coming in England on the factor by saying they will try to stop those to coming to England. However they doesn't have the power to do that so on the news it show how many people coming to England per years to show people who supported the government view and after certain time it promoted for people to vote come out of the Eu which is the method that is bias but work well on people who doesn't aware of the way mass media work.


News reader
The stereotype of a news reader usually are a white male, middle class, high education, straight (news reader in the UK), however this does not matter as the news reader are only represented the news to the audiences which the words other source of information used are provided by the those who collected it. In another hand the news still trying to leads the audience to the way they want the audiences to believe as they told by government.