Mm ch 11 news

Mass Media

Jason Nix Journalism Instructor and

Program Director

JOURN 110 Spokane Falls Community College

Television: Network News Not so bad?

Television: Network News Yeah, it’s bad.

Television: Network News It’s getting worse.

Television: Network News



Television: Network News Foreign news coverage


6 current trends 1.   The effects of newsroom cutbacks are real, and the

public is taking notice 2.   The news industry continues to lose out on the bulk of

digital advertising 3.   The long-dormant sponsorship ad category is seeing

sharp growth 4.   The growth of paid digital content experiments have

have a significant impact on both news revenue and content

5.   While the first and hardest-hit industry, newspapers, remains in the spotlight, local TV finds itself newly vulnerable

6.   Hearing about things in the news from friends and family, whether via social media or word of mouth, leads to deeper news consumption.

Current trends

Current trends

v Viewership mostly flat since 2010

Current trends

Current trends

v Digital traffic on the rise

A Brief History of Electronic News


Newsreels

•  Short, around 10 minutes long, news of the day, five or six items of current news, human interest, and sports

•  From WW I until TV (1950s), newsreels were shown before feature films

•  residual news – well-produced, expensive to produce stories about stories that would have a long shelf life



Problems facing early radio

•  Lack of recording technology •  Lack of credibility as new medium •  Power struggle with established media of the day

(newspapers)



Radio News

•  In 1933, the newspaper industry was powerful enough to force radio networks into the Biltmore Agreement: •  No morning newscasts before 9:30 a.m. or

evening newscasts before 9:00 p.m. •  No breaking news bulletins from the wire

services (AP, etc.) •  Newscasts could not be sponsored •  Radio commentaries, which were discussions

about the news, were permitted. •  Non-network stations were not party to the Biltmore

Agreement, and several independent radio news services were created to service these stations.



War of the Worlds

•  Newspaper jumped on the chance to make radio seem untrustworthy.

•  Fear of new technology

Murdoch vs. Google News •  Should Google make money from content

created by others?


•  The Biltmore Agreement lasted less than one year.

•  Newscasters, such as NBC’s Lowell Thomas, H.V. Kaltenborn at CBS, and gossip columnist Walter Winchell became radio stars.

•  Radio showed propensity for eyewitness reporting of breaking news

•  1937 explosion of the German dirigible The Hindenburg. “Oh! The humanity!”

•  Radio helped newspapers. Audience’s wanted in-depth newspaper coverage of breaking news heard over the radio.


•  How can radio compliment newspaper coverage?

•  How can internet compliment newspaper coverage?


•  Live reports of Hitler’s 1938 annexation of Austria, 1939 invasion of Poland, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor

•  During WW II, WSU graduate Edward R. Murrow becomes superstar for wartime newscast

•  In 1946, 63 percent of Americans cited radio as their primary source of news

•  In 1948, radio demonstrated its advantage over the slower-moving print media. Early editions of newspapers erroneously reported that Republican Thomas Dewey had defeated Democratic incumbent Harry Truman in the presidential election, but radio accurately flashed the news that Truman had won.

A Brief History of Electronic News Who Listens to NPR?

•  Audience older, more affluent than U.S. population

•  Median age NPR listener: 50, compared to 45 for U.S. population

•  54% male, 46% female. General population: 48% male, 52% female

•  Substantially wealthier than the population at large, more likely to have a college degree and to vote.

•  The median household income of an NPR listener is $86,114, compared to $55,462 for the U.S.

•  40% of NPR listeners have a household income of more than $100,000, compared with 22% of the population.

•  In terms of education, 69% of NPR listeners have a college degree or higher, compared to only 26% of the general population.

A Brief History of Electronic News Who Listens to NPR?

•  Fully 70% voted in a federal, state, or local election in 2008, compared to 44% of the U.S.

•  Surveys show that the NPR audience is politically moderate overall – though a smaller number are more likely to be liberal than the nation as a whole

•  The largest group of NPR listeners identify themselves as “Middle of the Road” (26%), this is roughly the same as the general population (28%).

•  However, the listeners are twice as likely to describe themselves as liberal as the population as a whole. Nearly a quarter, or 22%, describe themselves as “somewhat liberal” and 12% say they are “very liberal.” This compares to 11% and 5% of Americans as a whole.

•  Another 18% describe themselves as “somewhat conservative,” compared to 20% of the population. Self-described “very conservatives” represent 9% of the audience, compared to 12% of the population.




All-News Format

•  In 1960, San Francisco area station KFAX (“K-Facts) began presenting news 24 hours a day.

•  KFAX followed a “newspaper of the air” format which was like reading an entire newspaper from front to back, including sports, cooking features, and a “comics page,” consisting of comedy recordings, but the format was a financial failure.

•  In 1964, Chicago’s WNUS (“W-News”) adopted an all-news format with top stories, sports and features in regular rotation. WNUS was a success and today all-news is one of AM radio’s most popular formats.


Television News

•  TV executives skeptical believed that people would continue to rely on radio news, TV would be used as an entertainment medium.

•  Edward Murrow at CBS believed otherwise. •  By 1947, television network newscasts had regular

sponsors. The Camel News Caravan, on CBS, was sponsored by Camel Cigarettes and forbade news subjects, except Winston Churchill, to be shown smoking cigars. Camera operators and editors had to ensure that no “No Smoking” signs would be seen on screen.


•  By the early 1950s, TV networks were maintaining film crews in important locations and relying on stringers in other places. Film, however, remained expensive to process, so coverage was limited.

•  TV’s reliance on newsreel-type footage meant that news events occurring in places where film crews were not available would not be covered.

•  pseudo-event: an event that would not have happened if the media had not been invited

•  By the mid 1970s, videotape, which required no processing, would help free television news from its reliance on film.



Murrow and the Television Documentary •  In the early 1950s, Edward Murrow and Fred

Friendly of CBS started a television documentary unit that produced such classics as: •  “Harvest of Shame,” about the mistreatment of

migrant farm workers. •  “The Case Against Milo Radulovich A0589829,”

which examined McCarthyism through the story of a U.S. airman who had been discharged from the Air Force because his father and sister read “radical papers.”

•  Murrow’s programs became the predecessor and model for TV news magazines such as 60 minutes.



Coverage of Assassinations and Civil Unrest

•  America’s first see-it-as-it-happens national news event occurred two days after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Lee Harvey Oswald, the prime suspect in JFK’s murder, was shot on live television by Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby.

•  The Kennedy assassination marked the beginning of a turbulent decade that would include the 1968 assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, as well as a number of urban riots that were sparked by protests against racial discrimination and the Vietnam War.



Coverage of Vietnam •  For fear of being considered unpatriotic, the

networks refused to criticize the Vietnam policies of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration. In 1966, CBS news president Fred Friendly resigned after the network abruptly switched from broadcasting a Senate hearing on Vietnam to showing reruns of I Love Lucy and The Real McCoys.

•  Eventually, in-depth on-the-scene TV reporting from the Vietnamese battlefield began to include bloody footage of young soldiers being maimed and killed. This created a credibility gap between the Johnson administration’s attempts to manage the news and what the public believed to be true.

Cable News


Cable News •  Ted Turner adapted the format of all-news radio

and launched Cable News Network (CNN) in 1980. •  Several 24-hour-a-day news stories made CNN into

a true competitor for the networks: •  The 1986 explosion of the space shuttle

Challenger. •  The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 •  Comprehensive coverage of the first Gulf War in

1991. •  In 1997, Fox News was launched by Rupert

Murdoch and Roger Ailes as a conservative alternative to what they felt was a liberal CNN.




Understanding Today’s News Industry


News Values •  News is information about events that are currently

happening, or have happened so recently we haven’t heard about them yet. The industry’s obsession with being first with breaking news, and the pressure to make news “new,” often results in the reporting of rumors and incomplete information.

•  News has to have an impact on its intended audience. It might be important because it will have some consequence on them or because it is useful.

•  News peg (or angle) makes important, timely information interesting to the audience.


The Players •  Anchor: the newsreader who occupies the seat in the

studio. This person has traditionally spent decades as a field reporter and correspondent.

•  On-camera reporters in the field are known as correspondents. They travel in vans with prominent SNG (satellite news gathering) antennas on the roof. The cameraperson videotapes the correspondent with portable ENG (electronic news gathering) equipment.

•  For larger stories, television correspondents are backed up by field producers who do interviews, research, and writing for the on-screen correspondent.


•  Broadcast news consultants, who are ratings specialists brought in to increase a newscast’s audience appeal, do research and suggest changes in areas including: •  Lengths and types of stories. •  Consideration of the newscaster’s popularity. •  Graphics, music and set design.

•  Technical specialists in Radio, TV and online work with digital and computer-based technology.

•  Everyone in the newsroom has to have some computer skills because everything is computerized from copy to graphics, footage, logos, and in-depth audio visual databases.

Controversies

Controversies •  Conservatives, through organizations such as

Accuracy In Media (AIM) claim journalists have a liberal bias because they are anti-business, pro-big government, anti-family, anti-religion and anti-Republican.

•  Liberal organizations, such as Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) claim the media often have a conservative bias because they are big business and big business is inherently conservative.

•  Some critics insist the media have a centrist bias because mainstream media will not report on radical points of view from either extremely liberal or extremely conservative sides.

Controversies

•  Creeping bias is a subtle form of slanting that manifests itself in understated ways such as: •  The placement of stories. •  The choice of photos and the captions that go

with them. •  Conscious or subconscious language choices.

•  In 2003, during the War in Iraq, embedded journalists were given equipment and minimal training and considered a semi-official part of the military. Proponents believe the practice would provide accurate information about the war. Opponents believe such journalists would slant the news from the military’s point of view.

Controversies

•  Television news has been guilty of creating news stories whose sole purpose is to promote entertainment programs elsewhere on the schedule. CBS, for example, covered its program “Survivor” extensively on its morning news show.

•  Electronic news organizations use polls for entertainment. On September 13, 2001, 62 percent of respondents to a CNN/Time poll said Congress should declare war. But 61 percent said they didn’t know against whom war should be declared.

•  The public’s reaction to perceived political bias and entertainment values in the news have caused the public to lose confidence in the news media’s credibility.

Mass Media

Jason Nix Journalism Instructor and

Program Director

JOURN 110 Spokane Falls Community College

Education

Mm ch 11 news