Broadcast News

What is Broadcast News?

• News attracts mass audiences who want to be informed of local, national and global events.

• It is gathered, edited, produced and distributed on two levels: by the institutions that broadcast it (e.g. BBC) and by independent news agencies (e.g. Reuters) who employ journalists to collect stories and footage globally so the agencies can sell them on to broadcasters.

• The institutions that produce news help to shape audience response to current stories/issues and social attitudes

Production and manufacture of news

• The word, ‘manufacture,’ has connotations of artificiality, but broadcast news IS manufactured.

• The way it is collected, reported, edited, constructed and transmitted is not just the responsibility of the journalist

• News is big business and is heavily monitored by the institutions responsible for its production and by the authorities that monitor its output

News Agencies

• Commercial companies who research, collect and distribute news to broadcast news institutions

• They employ/deploy journalists and crews around the world to record events

• The news is then sold to global broadcasters to edit into their own features. Footage can be edited to suit the broadcaster’s style and purpose

Reuters

• Oldest (founded 1851) and most established British global news agency

• Has a reputation for independence and neutrality and its journalists are sometimes allowed access to stories when others have been denied

• Their neutrality means that raw footage can be easily edited to suit the needs of the broadcasters who buy it

• Now uses live streaming to transfer raw footage and packaged reports to broadcasters

ITN• One of Britain’s largest global news agencies and

produces news and factual programmes for all media channels and various platforms (excluding print)

• Initially funded by various ITV companies to collate and distribute news to the UK regions

• Now a successful global company responsible for distributing news across the globe to news broadcasters. In this country alone: ITV, Channel 4, London Tonight, More 4, Google, all mobile phone operators, Independent Radio News (supplying 260 local independent radio stations; some commercial radio stations like Classic FM, Talk Radio and Atlantic 252

BBC• Unique – it’s a news agency and news broadcaster• Global company, funded by the licence fee and commercial

ventures• Economic and institutional strength – distributes journalists

around the world to source, edit, report and broadcast• Responsible for how its news is collected, produced and

broadcast throughout its global franchises.• Public Service Broadcast (PSB) status – must remain impartial

and promote positive representations of minority and majority groups

• Still buy in images or footage from commercial news agencies

• Caters to a wide and varied audience – news on BBC1 at 10 in the evening will be noticeably different to that on Newsround, reflecting the difference in target audience and channel

News Broadcasters

• E.g. ITV, Channel 4 and Five News

• Buy news from agencies, edit raw footage to suit the news features being shown and the needs of the target audience.

• Generally employ in-house journalists to gather regional and national news because its cheaper to buy raw global footage from agencies for international news

News Sources

• The use of news agency footage is the decision of the broadcast journalist and editor, but a broadcast journalist must source the news too – from a variety of sources, such as the courts, armed forced, sports clubs, trade unions, parliament, politicians, hospitals, local councils, emergency services, European parliament, local and national businesses and industry, educational institutions, as well as press releases, private contacts, news conferences, news agencies, publicity stunts, press briefings, members of the public

• Combined with additional footage from an agency, this produces varied and current features

News Production and Construction

• Stories can sometimes take months to research and then have to be edited to convey the whole story in five minutes or less

• Equally, broadcast news can be dealing with a story that develops while the show is on air

• Broadcasters have to ensure that the tone and emotion of the story can be effectively communicated

• The broadcaster has to consider the use of narrative, representations, location shots, witness accounts and –occasionally – non-diegetic sound- to help position the audience.

News Saturation

• When an event dominates news coverage

• E.g. July 7 2005 bombings in London

• E.g. 2006 terror scares at British airports

• Saturation coverage effected regional and national broadcast news – little else was given priority over these stories for almost a month

• Sometimes, foreign events dominate the news E.g. The Charlie Hebdo killings in Paris 2015 – but they rarely affect regional news UNLESS a ‘local’ person has been caught up in the event

News Output

• Varies each day• Responsibility of the news editor to continue follow-up

stories and plan the day’s news events• Coverage of some events – or aspects of them – can be

planned in advance e.g. charity and PR events and, to a certain extent, political party conferences

• Remaining news – result of surprise events which can alter the news agenda for the day – could saturate coverage or bump other items down or completely off the agenda, depending on their importance so news editors must change and deploy journalistic teams when such events occur.

The News Editor• Decides on selection and priority of news events – in

charge of news agenda, setting and selection of news features

• Events will be constructed using news agencies, freelance journalists, broadcast journalists and news sources.

• Acts as a GATEKEEPER for news stories.• Checks day’s diary for events that have been pre-

booked into the news – if no surprise events – editor will select the news stories from the sources available

• Will direct reporters and crews to locations specified• Will also have to consider what the competitors are

doing

Gatekeeping

• Filtering information prior to dissemination (i.e. putting it on the news) – usually done by the editor but also how the journalist selects lines of questioning or uses some words to discuss people or an event

• Bear in mind news will have been mediated by its original source

• It’s the way for a news institution to control the flow of information passed to the audience

Gatekeeping

• X1 – TAXES HAVE BEEN RAISED BY 1.5%• X2 – A HIGH PROFILE CELEBRITY COUPLE HAVE

ANNOUNCED RTHEIR DIVORCE• X3 – THE GOVERNMENT HAVE ANNOUNCED A NEW

ROAD LAW PENALISING YOUNG DRIVERS WHO ARE CAUGHT SPEEDING

• X4 - A NEW PLANET HAS BEEN DISCOVERED• X5 - SCIENTISTS BELIEVE THEY HAVE DISCOVERED A

GENE THAT HELPS DISTATE YOUR NATURAL WEIGHT• THE GROWTH OF FREE NEWSPAPERS IS AFFECTING THE

ENVIRONMENT

Categorisation of News Stories

• Hard News – events happening at the time they are reported e.g. death of a high profile figure, rise in interest rates, acts of terrorism or war, serious accidents

• Soft News – human interest stories e.g. lottery winners, daredevil charity events etc

• Soft news provides light relief from hard news and sometimes allows audiences to imagine how they would react if they were in a similar position

• News tries to get audiences to identify with or connect to the events that happen and Hard News cannot always engage audiences as well as Soft News.

Truth and Realism – how are they conveyed?

• What do these features bring to a story?

• 1. Speaking to a victim or relative after an attack

• 2. Images of a bereaved parent

• 3. CCTV film of suspects

• 4. Suspects refusing to contribute/hiding themselves from the camera

• 5. Footage of a scene where a crime took place

• 6. A reporter talking to the camera outside of 10 Downing Street or Buckingham Palace or …