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ISBN: 978-1-62131-318-2
Contents
Introduction
1
DIna IbRahIm
News: Broadcast, Satellite, and Internet
5
mIChaEl C. KEIth
Radio Audience Trends
23
2006 annual REpoRt: publIC RaDIo vs. CommERCIal
The Bias of Language, the Bias of Pictures
25
nEIl postman
Journalism, News, and Power in a Globalised World:
Cultural Chaos
31
bRIan mCnaIR
Too Graphic?
43
aRIEllE EmmEtt
The Spectacle of Televised War
49
DEboRah lynn JaRamIllo
Women in TV News at a Record High, but Minorities Drop
75
bob pappER
News Coverage
81
Don hEIDER
The Influence of Exposure to Depictions of Race and Crime
in TV News on Viewers’ Social Judgments
93
Dana mastRo Et al.
The Commercial
nEIl postman
107
Managing the Business
113
bIll sIlCoCK, Don hEIDER, anD maRy Rogus
Obama and the Power of Social Media and Technology
125
JEnnIFER aaKER anD vICtoRIa Chang
One “Nation,” Under Stephen?
149
JoDy C. baumgaRtnER anD Jonathan moRRIs
Ethics: Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct
167
Forgive Me Now, Fire Me Later
169
mIKE Conway anD JaCob gRoshEK
60 Minutes and the News Magazine
187
stEvE m. baRKIn
Studying Influences on Media Content
195
stEphEn D. REEsE anD pamEla shoEmaKER
Celebrity News
201
stEvE baRKIn
Past Their Prime
213
DEboRah pottER
The Internet and the Future of News
215
paul sagan anD tom lEIghton
Citizen-Powered Journalism Fills a Void
221
angElo FERnanDo
Video News
225
mIChaEl RosEnblum
Understanding the Participatory News Consumer
KRIstIn puRCEll Et al.
229
Critical Issues in broadcast
and Electronic news
Dina Ibrahim
Introduction
N
ews is an essential part of our society. It
shapes our attitudes and sets our agendas
for what we regard as the most important
issues. But for many members of the eighteen-tothirty-five demographic, news is simply tuned out.
Why should we watch, listen to or read the news?
Why should we pay attention to international current
events? Why should we care about local news when
it’s all about crime and gossip anyway?
This book is meant to answer those questions
and to shed light on some of the pertinent aspects
of broadcast and electronic news. It will help you get
a sense of how broadcast (radio and television) and
electronic (online) news is produced and how we as
the audience should be aware of what we are consuming. The book will also help us to critically analyze
and compare the content of multiple news sources.
The journey begins with radio, the oldest broadcast medium. The radio was the predecessor to television and remains an important source of news today.
Many of us commute longer and longer distances,
and the constant companion in our cars is the radio.
In emergency situations, radio news can still be the
fastest way to access information, especially local
traffic reports. National Public Radio (NPR) is a vital
source of local, national and international news, and
so are local commercial radio stations, as detailed
in the Project for Excellence in Journalism’s annual
report. There is a stark contrast in the presentation
style, depth and scope of public and commercial
news. Michael C. Keith’s article highlights those differences and explains how the Internet and satellite
radio are changing the distribution of news and our
access to it.
One of the most debated issues in the news industry is objectivity. We are increasingly exposed to partisan commentary on talk radio and cable channels.
News organizations are constantly accused of being
too liberal or too conservative. Neil Postman examines what objectivity means and how the subjective
use of language, sound and pictures can significantly
alter the message the audience receives. Television
news, for example, consists of a script, video and audio. Postman explains how all of these elements of a
television story can be easily manipulated, as anyone
who has taken a news-production course involving
writing, shooting and editing can attest. But readers
who are not trained in news production techniques
will gain insight into how the production process can
influence the overall balance and fairness of news
content.
One of the limitations of broadcast news lies in
its geographic scope. Brian McNair writes about how
news is interpreted and distributed on a global level. It
is vital to pay attention to events in our local communities, as well as on a national and international scale.
1
Many Americans do not believe that international
news is important or significant to their lives, and
many local American stations respond by excluding
international reports from their newscasts because
of a perceived lack of audience interest. Conversely,
people around the world are aware of what is happening in the U.S. Globally, western news networks
such as CNN and BBC have traditionally dominated
global news discourse, but in the twenty-first century,
that discourse has shifted as new regional satellite
channels—such as Al-Jazeera, India’s NDTV and
NewsCorp’s StarTV—have emerged and are challenging the notion that western news narratives are
the only reliable sources of information.
The contrast between these global narratives
becomes more evident when we take the specific
example of war coverage and compare how western
news sources cover war to how other global news
stations report violent military conflict. In her article
“How Graphic?” Arielle Emmett asks if pictures of
the recent earthquake in Haiti were too graphic or
not graphic enough. We will examine the question of
sanitized war coverage and the challenges of reporting war on television, a medium which requires live
coverage and is heavily reliant on video. What is the
impact of this televised war coverage on society? Do
we regard war as a video game? Or perhaps a movie
that entertains us? Deborah Lynn Jaramillo tackles
these questions in her examination of the spectacle
of televised war.
Conflict and violence are common themes of television news stories. But how does covering violence
and crime impact our perception of people of color?
Don Heider discusses the representation of minorities
in newsrooms and how depictions of race and crime
influence our social judgments of minority communities. Ethnic minorities are often misrepresented on
the news or reported on in narrow contexts, such as
annual festivals like Chinese New Year or Cinco de
Mayo. Getting more minorities and women into the
broadcast workforce is one solution to this issue, but
is that enough?
Broadcast and electronic news is primarily a
business, and its bottom line is profit. This commercial model is completely different from the
2
Critical Issues in broadcast news
public broadcasting structure, whose primary goal
is to inform the public. Selling advertising time is
the main source of revenue for television stations,
and audience ratings determine how that advertising is priced. Online news is a trickier landscape for
profit, as online ads in news content are an evolving
concept. Knowledge of how the business aspect of
broadcast and electronic news is managed is crucial
to understanding how content is created and why
news is the way it is.
One of the biggest sources of revenue for television and radio stations, as well as for online news,
is election campaigns. Millions of dollars are spent
on campaign ads for political candidates, and new
technologies such as social media are being used to
spread the word about candidates and their policy
positions. The role of electronic media in political
campaigns is discussed, as well as the impact of latenight comedy programming on the voting electorate.
“Fake news” programs have exploded in popularity,
and for some young audiences, these shows are their
primary news source. This chapter analyzes the social
and political implications of this shift in audience
preference for receiving news in satirical formats and
explains why relying on broadcast news alone for
political campaign information can be misleading
and detrimental to the democratic process.
Misleading the public and misrepresenting information on the news are violations of the Radio
and Television Digital News Association Code of
Ethics. The readings on this subject are intended to
evoke discussions on the role of ethics in news and
the extent to which the Code of Ethics is actually
adhered to by electronic journalists. Just as audiences
expect news organizations to live up to high ethical
standards, professors also expect their students to
exhibit ethical behavior in their academic endeavors.
Mike Conway and Jacob Groshek’s article points out
the ironic gap between students’ high expectations of
ethical journalism and their own lower standards of
ethics when it comes to plagiarism and fabrication on
tests and assignments.
Broadcast news is often accused by its critics of being superficial and of not dedicating enough time to
the stories produced. The average television or radio
story on a local commercial station is ninety seconds,
which is not a lot of airtime to get an in-depth understanding of an issue. This is where documentary news
enters the picture. Long-format news documentaries
are where audiences can find the best examples of
broadcast investigative journalism. The documentary
format for television news was pioneered by CBS’s 60
Minutes, as Steve Barkin explains in his account of
the development of the television newsmagazine.
At this point in the book, readers will have gained
an understanding of how different formats of broadcast and electronic news are produced, but which
factors and decision makers influence that content?
Analyzing media content requires a theoretical
framework. Stephen D. Reese and Pamela Shoemaker
explain their hierarchy of influences model, a theory
that provides a multifaceted approach to understanding the various levels of influences that shape the
content of news. From the individual reporter level
to media routines, organizational influences, extramedia factors and ideology, the model provides a
unique approach to media scholarship. It combines a
wide range of media theories that help elucidate how
news is shaped and defined.
What we as a society define as news is determined
by the information that the gatekeepers (producers,
editors, news directors and station managers) of
news determine to be relevant. With the advent of
infotainment, blending relevant information and irrelevant entertainment has become commonplace in
commercial broadcast and electronic news. Celebrity
news and gossip has gained remarkable prominence
in today’s news outlets. Tabloid journalism is no
stranger to television, radio and the InternetWe will
track the development of celebrity news, its rise in
popularity with audience ratings, and the impact that
those high ratings are having on society, traditional
newscasts and newsmagazines.
Celebrity gossip on news websites is among the
most popular forms of information for those seeking
news online. The audience for online news is steadily
increasing, although currently in the United States
television is by far the primary source of news for
the American public. That may not be the case for
very long, as younger audiences migrate online for
their news and entertainment. The future of online
news will be determined by how television and radio
stations embrace the Internet as a wider distribution
platform. Radio stations can be heard online from
anywhere in the world, thus eliminating geographic
restrictions of terrestrial frequencies. Television
news stations can post their stories online and attract
more viewers who no longer have to wait for the local
evening newscast to be informed. But as the Internet
opens up new opportunities for reporting, it also
poses challenges for broadcast journalists.
The Internet has democratized journalism in
the sense that anyone can be a reporter and post a
story online. This trend is often referred to as citizen
journalism. If anyone with a camera and an Internet
connection can be a journalist or blogger, then how
can we as an audience assess that person’s credibility? Is citizen journalism a positive or detrimental
development? As Michael Rosenblum explains, the
videojournalist is the new frontier of reporting. The
videojournalist is a one-man-band reporter who
writes, shoots and edits his or her own stories. The
jobs of a reporter, cameraperson and editor are now
routinely performed by a single person. Paul Sagan
and Tom Leighton offer their perspective on the role
of citizen journalism both in the U.S. and in a global
context.
The journey ends with a reflection on the future of
broadcast and electronic news. Even though television, radio and online platforms are the most popular
sources of news, mobile phones are steadily gaining
market share for news distribution. According to the
2010 Pew Internet & American Life project study,
one-third of Americans access news on their mobile
phones. This trend and others are discussed in the
final chapter, which challenges readers to examine
their news consumption habits and compare themselves to the data on participatory news consumers.
News organizations are investing heavily to ensure
that news is convenient for us to read, hear and watch.
The next frontier of news distribution will be faster,
smaller and more portable than ever. Smartphones
capable of disseminating audio, video, pictures and
text will play an important role in the future of news.
But it is up to us to continue to critically examine
3
the content of that news and hold broadcast and
electronic-media organizations accountable for
4
Critical Issues in broadcast news
providing us with high-quality information, no matter how it is distributed.