Unit 7
Journalism: LO1 understanding the news Industry
There are lots of different sectors and types of news
providers such as TV, radio, print, web, social media which offer different
areas of the news.
TV news
providers such as the BBCNews give scheduled news reports each day. The news
reports provided by the BBC are often quite informative and focus on global
news such as politics, economy and worldwide news stories. The BBC are a public
service broadcaster which means they are funded by public money, because the
BBC are a public service broadcaster they have to cater for the publics
needs/interests (inform, educate and entertain) by include the types of news
they do in their broadcast it allows them to inform and educate the audience. As
the BBC covers a lot of political news it can often be politically bias, this
means that they favour either the right or left wing, The BBC have been accused
of being politically bias towards the right wing.
Other TV news providers such as ITV (Good Morning Britain)
features more of an entertainment/gossip side of the news, here they report on
global news but also celebrity gossip/interviews. TV news providers offer a
range of different types of news at scheduled times or even 24hr news, this is
beneficial for the audience because it allows them to get news when they want
it.
The owner of The Daily Mail is a conglomerate company called
Daily Mail and General Trust, they work in industries such as new, print, web
and education. The Daily Mail reported on the student who killed six men at a
Canadian mosque. The online article goes into detail about Alexandre
Bissonnette. The online article also talks about the people killed and images
of the Mosque. The Daily Mail reports that he killed these six Muslims as a terrorist
attack on them because he was a pro-Trump supporter. They add in detail about
the him being a pro-trump supported as they are slightly politically bias and
therefore want to show this killing to be because of Donald Trump. This article
also appears on the Daily Mail app, here the story is condensed but still gives
considerable information about Bissonnette. The Daily Mail gives a lot of
information about people’s views on Bissonnette’s personality as a lot of
people who knew him called him friendly and someone who wouldn’t do this crime.
BBC world news reported on the same story, this was reported as breaking news.
BBC reported that six Muslims had been shot in the Quebec Mosque during evening
prays, as this was reported as breaking news it means that not a lot of detail
or confirmed information could have been reported. Again this news report
stated that the suspect was a pro-Trump supported and this was the reason. Also
with this report they included tweets from people and an interview with a
journalist in Quebec.
Radio news
providers such as Global News Radio, this provides informative news about
current events. Global news radio is also a conglomerate company to some of the
other big radio stations such as Capital FM, classic FM and heart, these radio
stations often provide news as well but they are more on the
entertainment/gossip side. In addition, Radio providers can tailor local news
due to their location; this means they can deliver travel news/local events to
the audience. Radio platform is
beneficial for an audience because it can be listen to on the go/in the car
whereas other platforms such as TV cannot offer.
Web news providers such as ‘Wired’ can offer a range of
different news sector on their one website; this is because a range of people
can access them. Wired does provide news which inform, educates and entertains
through different articles. News providers that were once print news providers
have converted to an online platform due to the growing use of technology. Web
and Social media news is beneficial for both the audience and institution as it
is instant, so new updates or stories can be added regularly.
Web 2.0 has allowed citizen journalism to be create; this is
when normal people are able to report on events near them/what they have
knowledge on. As this is a web news provider it allows them to imbed videos and
links which otherwise would not have been available. Web 2.0 also offers
instant news updates to be available when covering on going news stories as it
can be instantly shared to a wide audience.
Social
media news providers such as Snapchat allows a younger audience to view news
sites, this is because a young audience stereotypically doesn’t read
newspapers, doesn’t watch the news, doesn’t listen to news radios, by creating
a different platform it allows a young audience the ability to access these
news reports. Other social media sites such as Twitter has new become a news provider as it allows companies to
advertise snippets on their articles/stories online, which then can be access
through links on the post. The character limit on twitter means that the news
companies have to pick out the most valuable points of the article to attract
the audience. This again provides a platform for a young audience to view these
news reports. Social media and the web is
a good way to distribute news as it is easy to distribute to a wide audience,
this is an advantage for the institution because it means more people (especially young people) view these news stories.
A disadvantage of this however is that an audience can redistribute this
content and add their own opinions on the story, this is bad as people can be
quite abusive towards each other and therefor it could reflect badly on the
institution who orginally ditribute it.
Print news providers such as Sun, give the audience both
educational and entertaining news. The Sun often provides more
entertainment/gossip news as it is aimed at a C2DE target audience and that is
in their interests. Whereas Print news provides such as The Guardian offers
more informative news such as political and economic news, The Guardian provide
this due to their ABC1 audience. Although when delivering political news, it
can sometimes be politically bias due to the type of newspaper. The Sun is a
subsidiary company owned by Rupert Murdoch, the conglomerate for this is New
corporation.
The New
York Post is a print news provider which offers an audience local news from
around the New York area, covering many news topics such as social, political,
breaking news, fashion, local information, sport and business. With the growing
rise of technologies print newspapers aren’t used as much as before, a lot the
print news providers have made web/social media news platforms as well to keep
up with the changes in technology. Print News providers are used my an older
demographic, this is because they don’t have as much access to online news as
younger generations.
Press agencies such as Press Association and Reuters gather
news stories to sell to the big news channels. Getty images stores images that
could be used in articles to sell on to big news companies such as the Sun, if
they have an article but no picture to go along with it then they would buy
from Getty images.
Gate keeping
is when articles/information is filtered through in order to pick out the best
articles to publish. The editor acts as the gatekeeper. Articles are chosen by the editor, the editor choses
these based on their opinions and interests which can mean that it can become
bias based on the editor’s personal experiences. Protective coverage is the way the gatekeeper’s select news to
publish in order to prevent certain information reaching a mass audience. This is
material that may be harmful to either figures of power
(politicians/government) or the audience.
Web 2.0
allows users to produce and (re)distributing online news items through social
media networks such as twitter or Facebook. Which can allow users to manipulate
content according to their needs and interests, this can be a disadvantage to
the institution as if offensive content is added to their articles and
therefore could damage their reputation.
