Television News - informing the public about significant events
Uploaded by chalice on Dec 11, 2001
Discuss to what extent two television stations broadcasting to audiences in Western Australia succeed in informing the public about significant events, in a fair and balanced way.
Television news is an entertainment medium intending to inform the public of current issues in society, but that is not its prime function. It also serves as a program that helps viewers to see issues from different perspectives. Some perfect fairness cannot exist, so bias of some sort must be present in all Television news. The news segments generally adopt a point of view and set out to convince the viewers to agree with that point of view. This persuasion is achieved through a number of tactics, the main two being the use of logic and evidence to support the idea, and persuasive language that the newsreader uses to help convince you to believe that idea.
Television news is less concerned with issues than with other mediums of news, such as newspapers and magazines, and more concerned with drama and entertainment. The excessive use of specific camera angles and shots and the way the segment within itself is presented prove this. For example, consider the presentation of the newsreader. The presentation of the newsreader would not be that important if the sole purpose of the news program was to inform viewers. The attention would be concentrated more upon the information presented rather than the way the presenter looks, but in today’s day and age, viewers aren’t satisfied with just the bare facts. They want some form of entertainment and viewing satisfaction as well, and this entertainment is supplied in the form of
Re-enactments and impressive camera shots of news stories on television, the presentation of the segment and news reporters and readers, and the use of graphics and visuals.
Some television station’s news programs are more concerned about important world issues than others. Take for example, on one Wednesday April 19th on ABC news, one of the headlining stories was concerning Cyanide leakages in the shared river systems of Hungary, Romania and Yugoslavia, showing the side effects of the spillage. This story was presenting a very controversial and important issue, yet the same story was not even mentioned to viewers that same night on Channel Seven News. This proves that ABC news is more concerned about important world issues that are likely to have some affect on people than Channel Seven is.
Channel Seven have proven to...