When looking over at my viewing log of the midday news, I see that traditional "news" stories were given primary placement, as those were the ones that were covered early in the broadcast, but that they weren't necessarily given the most time. In fact, the beginning of the broadcast moved very quickly, with each story getting just about a minute, give or take a few seconds. In fact, up until the first commercial break, 10 distinct stories were covered in just 8 minutes. Of these 10 stories, 8 could be considered traditional news stories-- many which were local stories, and one that was national news. Also included in the first 10 stories was a look at the weather and an advertising blurb announcing what was to come in the next twenty minutes.
It was striking to me how often the anchors alluded to stories that were coming up in the half-hour. Given that all these stories have so little time devoted to them, it seems strange that they would take 10-15 seconds to highlight a story they will spend a minute on ten minutes from now. It seems that news programs are designed to keep the viewer watching-- they are really fast paced, they often include clips of reporters "on the scene," and they are constantly throwing in "lures" associated with what's to come in their report. The audience of this news program is being treated as if they are watching to be entertained.
The notion of news being entertaining is reinforced by all the attention devoted to news about Hollywood, music, celebrities, and sports. In this particular broadcast, the longest segment (nearly 3 full minutes) was devoted to sports news. Granted, a lot of different sports teams were covered-- but imagine what a different feel it would have if instead the news devoted 3 minutes to national issues. Then, almost the entire last half of this news program was composed of entertainment news-- a good handful of which was connected in some way to ABC or channel five, as they advertised that night's programming and gave one-liners about what stories would be covered on the next news report. Based on the amount of entertainment news they are given, audiences are being positioned to view this information as what is important. Personally, I think it's clear that knowing how much Britney Spears spends each month in child support is not nearly as important or useful as knowing what is currently being discussed in D.C., but at the same time, I almost think it's more aligned with what people want to hear. When people turn on the news these days, they expect entertainment.
I wonder if there is a particular time of day that elicits more entertainment news than other broadcasts. There's definitely a different in ads that play during that time, or at least that's what I would suggest based on my informal and occasional survey of various news programs, but I wonder if there is any significant different in type of news stories.
Something to consider: Does this focus on entertainment news get subdued during times of tragedy? Or does it just appear in different ways?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I think the fact that this is a noon report does effect the level of hard news. Think of the programming that follows.... Soaps, not the national news.
This noon report also has to fight for ratings just like any program. I often can not watch CNN for more then 20 minutes. Its all such bad news... death, murder, destruction, war etc. Even though it may seem un-newsworthy to talk about Britney Spears I personally think thats interesting and keeps the news not such a bummer.
Yeah, good point. So much of the news is negative that programs do need to do something to make sure the maintain viewers. But isn't there "good" news too? Does it all have to be in the form of entertainment? I don't know-- every once in awhile you'll see the 30-second "high school athlete of the week" highlight or something, like that, but it's pretty rare to see a happy news story.
Post a Comment