Is TV news a 'window on the world'?

Is TV News a Window on the World?

Television news aims to educate and inform us on current events both nationally and internationally, the way in which they present the information must be presented in a biased manner as well as being truthful, sounds easy enough right? Only once you look into things the window on the world idea becomes more and more hazy, allow me to show why.

Opening Sequence

Through the use of subliminal conveyance via imagery, the opening sequence throws all sorts of conventions that are apparent through all news channels/programs whether it be the BBC, ITV, C4 etc. Now let’s explore these conventions:

• ·         Transparency: Yes transparency works on a very subliminal level and now that I’ve mentioned it you probably won’t be able to un-see it. So why transparency? Not just because it looks nice, transparency conveys that as a company or news outlet that they are see through and are hiding nothing from their audience, this also refers to the idea of them being a window.

• ·         Colour Scheme: Blue- The majority of news broadcasters will contain a blue background behind their newsreaders as well as during the opening graphics of the program itself, this is because blue is a naturally calming colour as well as giving a sense of friendly and righteousness-you can trust us, is basically the message. 

• ·       Clocks/Time: Now this says three major things: this news is urgent, the news is round the clock and also it can be like saying the news at ten for instance is now, if the clock onscreen is at the 10 O’clock mark then it is again promoting its importance. You will see clocks on almost every opening to the news, well at least in Britain and the rest of Europe and the West for these very reasons.

• ·         Globe: The use of a globe and in particular a transparent globe is again prevalent in most opening sequences and backgrounds; the reason being to connote that the news is being covered on a global scale and that all news is both relevant but also equally important, which of course is not the case but they want you to believe it is.

•        Landmarks: Essentially used for the same reason as the use of a globe but this time it is telling us directly what our subconscious was hinting at. Usually showing around four famous landmarks such as the Houses of Parliament, the Eiffel Tower, the Golden Gate Bridge and the Great Wall of China, telling us that these are the four corners of the world which of course are not and are actually more developed and 1^st class countries or ‘global superpowers’.

• Music: Booming brass instrumentals are the bread and butter of opening themes for news programs, loud and in your face these aim to pull you in and draw your attention away from the droning of adverts and basically shout ‘Here I am, Watch me, I am important!’.

Summary so far: The fact that programs are using these sneaky tools to make us feel a certain way about things sounds rather fishy for a supposed unedited raw peep through the looking glass and so we already can tell that there is a level of bias making its way in here, let’s see what else there is to find.

Newsreaders: Newsreaders are restricted as to the amount of personal feelings and opinions they can put into how they report a story not just through their language used but also through the way in which they say the words; this is because we as the viewers are not to be influenced by their opinions because as previously mentioned there needs to be a minimal amount of bias coming to a surface. Because of these restrictions the newsreaders can come across as cold or even robot-like and this in turn can in a sense alienate the audience since it can appear although they don’t care about something tragic that has just been reported. They also connect to their audience directly by looking them supposedly through the eyes which gives a feeling that there is no barrier between them and the truth.

Summary so far: When it comes to the newsreaders themselves then the amount of bias is minimal and so there is nothing wrong or deceptive going on here. This is one of the few things that actually does help keep the news under the window on the world premise. These ideals are backed up by the use of regulation and specifically OFCOM or by following the BBC Code of Practise:

OFCOM- Ofcom regulations are to be followed by any news outlet and these rules tell us that we are to be shown the news in an unbiased fashion with
'due impartiality' and 'due accuracy'. The specific regulations are known as 5.1-5.3 and this is how they read:

5.1 News, in whatever form, must be reported with due accuracy and presented with due impartiality.

5.2 Significant mistakes in news should normally be acknowledged and corrected on air quickly. Corrections should be appropriately scheduled.

5.3 No politician may be used as a newsreader, interviewer or reporter in any news programmes unless, exceptionally, it is editorially justified. In that case, the political allegiance of that person must be made clear to the audience.

BBC CoP- The BBC Codes of Practise are in place to make aware the dire importance of an independant and unbiased news provider, most obviously explained within the commissioning Guidelines specifically 1.2, and it reads:

1.2 'The BBC's objectives throughout the commissioning process are to specify its requirements in a transparent manner, to provide independent producers with access to clear information about its commissioning requirements, and to commission independent producers openly and fairly taking into account the quality and price of their proposals, submitted through the BBC's online proposals system.' put simply the ultimate goal of the BBC is to show things how they are without trying to boycott certain information from the stories themselves.

 The Gatekeeping Process 

Since time constraints are in place in the sense that we are unable to show every event that is currently occuring worldwide we use this term 'The Gatekeeping Process' to explain the process used to determine if the story is reportworthy or not. The way in which news is reported is that first off the event happens and then when investigated facts are then presented by sources and eyewitnesses in order to start to build up a picture of what has gone on. This can then become public knowledge and end up shared through social media, however so many social media sites pass around this knowledge on a day to day basis that actually the news companies are unable to track and filter all of it.

 News Values

Now regardless of whether or not a company is out to make a profit from its viewers it is important to hold their interest in the news as to keep them loyal to the company and not change channels. The companies will get bombarded by hundreds of news stories big and small daily, since there are limited timeslots as well as resources the company must decide upon what they choose to broadcast. The companies would use a guideline known as News Values which was a list created by Galtung and Ruge and they had developed a system to follow in order to determine if a story would be worth reporting, they could calculate what would ultimately make good news and their methodology is based around these following factors:

1^st. Frequency: The time at which an event happens, if the events timing does not coincide with the corporations then it will be missed out or left behind.

2^nd. Threshold: How big an impact the story has had to a larger number of people; for example a tsunami that caused devastation for tens of thousands will be reported whereas a story about one person that got shot will be overlooked since it is of less global importance.

3^rd. Ambiguity: The clarity of a report determines if it will be covered or not, if there is a flow of wrong or conflicting information then the company cannot afford to misinform its audience.

4^th. Meaningfulness: How relevant is the story to its audience? A local newspaper may report on a stolen vehicle but a national news program cannot afford to waste time and effort on one person when they are not the only person with which the event has occurred.

5^th. Unexpectedness: Old news or things we hear about often do not draw our attention, something like a tornado tearing across Britain for example would be something that hasn’t been reported before and so it has that shock factor that draws its audience in, engrossing them in the story.

6^th. Continuity: Essentially stories that are not one time reports, even if that means that the reports that bridge the gap between beginning and end are not of particular interest, the reporters will do their best to make something seem more active than it actually is so the people following the story don’t lose interest in it.

7^th. Elite Nations: A report that involves a global superpower is more likely to make the headlines than say an event in Africa even if the story in Africa is more engaging and meaningful.

8^th. Elite Persons: People with high renown such as celebrities are more likely to be covered when for example a death occurs or they are faced with criminal charges. These stories are placed above your average Joe even though the circumstances may be the same since more people know them and have an interest in pop culture and gossip.

9^th. Negativity: There is no such thing as bad news, seriously, the more negative a story is the more likely it will get reported. Since as a race we are drawn to negativity, companies feed of that information and so they boost their ratings all because we would rather hear about how some man was killed as opposed to how another man was saved.

(Even if a story fits into all but one of these gates then it may still be rejected; even if it passes all criteria there are still technical and legal difficulties that come into the fray which can determine if a story is no longer valid.)

Even after all of this rigorous processing there are still certain censorship laws that do not permit the reports to go out to the public or even anyone that is not strictly involved with the event.

Also if a news corporation is coming towards the end of its yearly funding then big stories may be left unreported due to there not being the resources available to fly a reporter and camera crew out to where the story is happening, an iconic example of this is when there was alot of interest surrounding Tiananmen Square and actually the BBC got much more concise coverage and also managed to secure some very iconic pictures that were only held by the BBC.

When exposed to competiton we find ourselves doing one of two things as far as media is concerned and either we A) try to outshine the competition by providing special coverage and unique information or we B) simply leave the story to the competition as to not waste resources but as well as look for bigger fish to fry so to speak.

All of the forementioned aside there is one final hurdle and that is the presence of technical difficulties. If we cannot get a signal or feed from international stories then we will instead have to abandon the report at the very least on a temporary basis in favour of a less high stakes story and in the worst cases the report will be dropped on a permanent basis dependant on how ongoing the current affairs are.

Editing:

•  Since much of what we are presented has been edited to atleast a minor degree then our opinions can very much be influenced by the apparently staged events and also things can appear much more of a threat than it actually is however this use of hyperbole helps to keep the audience interested in the stories and so it works in the favour of the news corporation.

• When certain events arent captured as they happen then there is a database of stock or archive footage that can be editied into the story to try and reproduce the events that took place however important details may be left out or things that appear major news turn out to be say an old piece of footage of bombs going off; the second half of that point is again sought after by the corperations since it connots conflict and danger and givent the final rule of Galtung and Ruges news values we know that bad news is great news.

Conclusion:

Given the various techniques set in place from the very foundations of the story to alter how we perceive the stories we are being told and pair this with the fact that the process of elimination is so specific then we can conclude that TV news certainly isn’t a ‘window on the world’. That being said there are so many sources of news available to us in all kinds of formats that allow us to further create and build upon our outlook and knowledge of the news as we see fit; to summarise, the fact that TV news is somewhat biased in this age it really only has a minor impact on us as a whole and can be overlooked with relative ease.