News

Part 1/2

For part 1 of this essay I watched BBC Look East from Wednesday 25th of May at 6:30pm .

Mentioned in Bulletin at start:

• Essex Death inquiry now murder investigation (a year later)
• Controversial road junction- Postwick hub
• British Olympic athlete may win bronze medal 8 years late (Russian doping scandal)
• Coffee roasted in Peterborough.

In Order:

• Essex Death inquiry now murder investigation (a year later)
• Controversial road junction- Postwick hub
• Talks for ambulance staff strike prevention continue
• Negotiations about East Anglian Devolution
• Network Rail Crossing Closures

Intermission sequence

• EU Referendum- County by County
• New charity set up by a family to raise money for Brain Tumours- Brother's 6000 mile trek to raise money.
• British Olympic athlete may win bronze medal 8 years late (Russian doping scandal)
• Coffee roasted in Peterborough (1 in every 7 cups of coffee were roasted in Peterborough)
• Weather

The starting sequence starts with a round up of the most important news stories of the evening then goes onto a 10 second sequence with pictures of the area the news covers (East Anglia) with loads of white circles moving across the screen finishing with a picture of the forum in Norwich (where its filmed/broadcast) and the name of the programme "BBC LOOK EAST" and their website and Facebook page. The sequence has the audio and images to make sure they have the viewers attention.

The newsreaders/presenters in the studio are Stewart White and Susie Fowler-Watt. Their role is to inform the audience of what is happening in the county/country/world, and different stories ranging in importance.

Part 3

News ordering is the order the news stories are read, from the first story (most important) to the last (and Finally...) the news order is intended to appeal to the audience and keep them interested throughout the programme.

The term given to the list of stories that will be included in the programme is the "running order".

The first story shown is called the "Lead" and is the biggest story of the day, and therefore the most important one for that broadcast.

The other stories are mixed up to keep interests sparked and so the viewers dont turn off early at the stories that may be considered boring and unimportant. Stories that are similar may also be grouped together in a roundup, such as a roundup of national news or a roundup of sports etc...and after the final story we will usually get the weather.

Being able to think/act quickly when reading the news as there may be some breaking news coming in that you wont have known about before so you have to act quickly as to not muck up.

A 'slow news day' is when not much has happened that can be reported so what are sometimes seen as "trivial" stories may be reported instead.

The final story is often called an "and finally..." and its purpose its to provide a relatively light story to finish of the main reports before the weather.

News values are the criteria used by the media to decide how prominent and important a story is and where it will fall in the reports running order. Theses values were decided by Gatlung  & Ruge back in 1973 and are as follows:

Some examples of news stories that follow these values are:

(https://youtu.be/fXNV3Ad0qQ0 for the video)

This news story follows the news values of : 

• Immediacy, as it happened on Friday (25/06) and was reported instantly
• Familiarity, as it is an extremely close event to us in Britain
• Amplitude, as it is a decision that will affect our whole country
• Frequency, as PMs do not resign often
• Unambiguaty, as it is definite that he is resigning
• Predictability, as this was not expected to happen seeing as he had released a statement before the referendum saying he would carry on as PM no matter what the result
• Surprise, as it is a rare event for the PM to just resign
•  and
• Negativity, as it does leave the future uncertain as we dont know exactly who will replace him

Part 4-Bias

When deciding the running order of the report the Editor can choose whether to include a certain story or to include a story but cut out points in the story that supports a different side of an argument to the side he or his news station is on.

Another way they do this is by placement of a particular story, for example putting a story that supports their views right at the start of the programme so more people watch it, and putting the story that disagrees with them right at the end so not as many people will watch it as it will be viewed as unimportant and the less important news goes towards the end. 

Newspapers can also use their headlines to show something in a good or bad light such as this:

Which shows Migrants in a bad light by saying they "invade Britain" rather than to "live hear and integrate into our society"

Another way for bias in the media is by the use of camera angles and shot selection as they can choose to use pictures that paint the subject in negative light which can influence the audience to have a negative view of the subject before they have heard the story.

Media companies also use bias in the way they describe subjects of the articles for example they may choose to describe someone as an "Ex Con" saying he served 3 months in jail ten years ago, and then not saying that it was because he didn't pay a parking fine.

Which leads us into bias by choice of words as the was the media decides to talk about the person in the article or report will let the audience know how that media company wants you to perceive the subject.