Introduction to the News.

For this essay I have recently watched a BBC 60 second news broadcast which fits in as many stories as possible in the the small time frame that they have. In this broadcast the female news reader covered a total of 5 stories which started off with a former footballer 'Adam Johnson' at trial of having sexual intercourse with a child but denied every accusation, 3yr old 'Liam Turner' was killed when his mum ran him over, her husband was teaching her how to drive and to this day his death has been treated as accidental. Laser pens and any other form of lasers should be classed as offensive weapons after a Virgin airline was ordered to turn back after a laser injured a pilots eye. Ronnie o' Sullivan deliberately missed the chance to score at the Welsh Open as he thought the £10,000 prize money wasn't worth it, and she mentioned that it was the last night of Three on TV and people should check the DailyDrop online to keep up to date. The stories were placed into this order, presumably because the rank of importance to the audience, she started of by explaining that it was Three's last new night as this was most important for the channel and then went on to talk about 'Adam Johnson' being accused of sexual assault as this is a horrendous thing to be trialed for and people want to know more about this topic. In this broadcast, typically like every news broadcast there is a CGI intro before the news reader starts to talk, specifically in my news broadcast there is a circle that's meant to seem a clock with the number 60 inside, making it obvious to the audience how long the program will last.

Most news broadcasts are fitted some exciting yet important and authoritative audio that people instantly connects with watching the news, also once the presenter does start talking there are previous stories that would have been covered on the green screen behind her. I assume this is to make it not as boring and making it more engaging overall.

On the 60 second news broadcast I watched, Sam Naz was the selected news reader for this time, she is 26yr old female that began her career in BBC in 2003. A news reader, also knows as a news presenter or news caster  is a person which presents the news on the television, radio or internet, some of which are also journalists, working with others in the collection of news material and may also provide a commentary during the programme. They mostly work at the studio in front of the camera or in some cases present the news in other locations to report a major news event. Ideal skills for a newsreader are as follows; be an effective communicator, have the ability to process more complicated English language, prepared to take and volunteering opportunity to gain extra experience, have a clearly visible passion for news reporting, be extra enthusiastic and professional at all times, you may also need the ability to be a strong team player in the fast live environment.

News ordering is the term used for the order in which certain stories are shown in. This is usually depicted by the rank of importance of the story, how big an impact it has on people or whether it it affects many people or not. Breaking news can sometimes break this order as it's something that needs to be heard before anything else, no one really knows how long the breaking news will last if its a sudden broadcast but once all news so far is covered, the news reader will continue on with the original news order. In the broadcast I have chosen, the main story which is covered first is the sexual assault accusation on former footballer 'Adam Johnson' this is mostly because he is a famous footballer and the crime he has been taken to trial for is very serious, after this the report then carries on to other not so important stories that are more local. After the first story or breaking news, the other stories are covered much more quickly in a way to fit more stories into that broadcast. Prospect lists are something that the news editors produce which includes all the possible news stories for the certain broadcast, up until the broadcast the editor has the privilege to cross out and add new stories depending on which he thinks is more important for people to see. Slow News days are certain times where the news companies report and cover trivial types of stories because of the lack of significant topics. Mostly all news readers and reporters need to act quickly and responsively due to the the time-frame that the stories need to be covered in, also if there is sudden breaking news they need to be prepared for what to say at the last minute, another thing, if reports are corresponding from another location and something they're reporting suddenly happens they may need to make up their dialogue on the spot to make sense of what is happening where they are. News values determine how much prominence to give to a story, they are general guidelines used by Newspapers or media broadcasts. Galtung and Ruge were the founders of this system, they analysed international news to find out what they had in common, came up with a scoring system and a list of values, then based them on how big of an impact they had on the public and the experience of watching it.

Negativity - These are always rated above ‘Positive’ stories (Royal weddings, celebrations etc.)
e.g. ‘Five people die after car goes off pier into sea’ – Eastern Daily Press.

Closeness to home  - Audiences supposedly relate more to the stories that are close to them geographically.

e.g. ‘Have your say on shaping region’s treasure for the next two decades’  “Maintaining the Broads” – Eastern Daily Press.

Recency - Newspapers are very competitive about breaking news – about revealing stories as they happen.

e.g. 

Currency - Almost a complete opposite to ‘Recency’, In that stories that have been in the public eye for some time already are deemed valuable. For example; a murder of a child may run for weeks and weeks even if nothing new really happens or arises.

Continuity -  These stories have a high value when the story breaks in the news therefore making the audience want to tune in everyday to keep update of what is going on. Events that have an ongoing narrative such as a war or sports event that have a continuing impact on the audience.

Uniqueness - A story or given a unique headline of which pursues an unusual event. ‘Norfolk Man Marries Dog’ would be gain news values in this respect as it covers a unique or unusual event.

Simplicity - Some people prefer these stories over others that are harder to follow and hard to understand. Stories or events that are  easy to explain and understand, for example; ‘Cat stuck up tree’

Personality - Stories that are that are about a particular person, this is because they are presented from a ‘human interest’ angle, particularly if they involve a well known person. Lots of people say that this value has been distorted through the years  and that news organisations over-rate these personality stories, especially those that involve celebrities. “Katie price goes to the beach”. 

Expectedness  - This is whether the story or event matches the expectations of an audience or the news organisation, or includes what was expected to happen. If a news story that is being covered conforms to the prediction of the news organisation then it will have a high value for expectedness.

Elite Nations or People -  These are any stories that cover an important, powerful nation that has greater news values than a story which covers a less important nation, this is the same for people aswell. 

Exclusivity - If only one newspaper or news programme is covering a breaking story then it will get scored a very high score in this topic. The UK Sunday papers are very fond of exclusives, and will often break a story than no one else has.

Size - The bigger the impact of the story, the more people it affects. The more money/resources it involves, the higher its value, this is know as ‘Threshold’

The main story in this broadcast is 'Adam Johnson' sent to trial for sexual assault against a child but denies all accusations. Adam Johnson is quite obviously the main focus in this coverage as the story is aimed at him. Other people that are featured in this is the press and camera crew from other media companies trying to get information and recordings or Adam leaving the trial, this emphasises the importance of the story as we can see more people trying to cover it, this would get a high value in the size new value section. Adam Johnson is represented as a bad person in this story with a heavy guilty conscience, this is done by showing him isolated form everyone else and being pestered by lots of people wanting to know his side of the story, the news wants him to look guilty so they use dialogue and camera shots to make this seem true as possible. I felt like I truly believed this story and agreed with what they were saying about the case as they are more reporters covering the same story making it more trustworthy. There wasn't really any structure to the news broadcast however it did seem like they ordered the stories to most important to least, obviously the story regarding a celebrity would be first on screen.

Numerous news stories can be influenced by attitudes of the people that do the interviews or writers and editors etc. Some bias in the news is done on purpose to give a forced opinion form the audience on the events reported, this is called bias through selection and omission. An editor can express bias by choosing whether or not to use a specific news story. Within one story they can choose whether to leave out certain parts depending on how they want you to feel; for example a speech from the prime-minister and only leaving in the parts where people are booing and replying with negative comments, giving across the message that people do not like him. Bias through placement is where a story is placed influences what people think about it's importance; for example, when the 9/11 terrorist attacks happened this would have been on every newspapers front cover as soon as possible, because this is more important than any other it would be put at the front instead of with the stories at the back of the newspaper. Another bias technique is through headlines, editors make the headlines bold and easy to see conveying something exciting or intriguing that is infact very mis-leading; for example "Israel kills pregnant mother and her daughter in revenge attacks" although what has happened is really said, but Israel was not targeting anyone specifically and indeed not intentionally aiming for a pregnant mother, this was just by chance. The news make try to make them sound like malicious baby killers instead of just terrorists.

Bias through photos or captions can make a person look bad , silly or sick etc. Newspapers and editors try to capture these moments to make people think less of them or vice versa; for example the photo of Ed Milliband eating a bacon roll, this photo makes him seem not powerful at all and pretty stupid considering his job however this is not the case, it is just through media people make this judgment.  Bias through names and titles is quite common where the editors try to make people sound more bad than they actually are;for example and "ex-con man" which was actually referred to a man that served time 20 years ago for a minor criminal offense. Lastly Bias of the use of language is sometimes common as people can be influenced by the use of negative or positive words giving across a certain connotation, News readers can also often put on a tone in their voice when saying specific words; for example the seaside fights between the mods and rockers in Clacton, the news reports were labelling them as if they were animals and blowing everything out of proportion causing media amplification. "Vermin" "louts" "Animals".