History:
- till 1950s radio news
- 1953 the Coronation was probably the first major event covered as we know it today.
- 1955 ITNs News at Ten – style less formal. Even today BBC do not see news as entertainment.
Conventions:
- While news gathering and transmitting have evolved, presentation has remained very traditional.
- Deconstruction of camera angles, movement and position and editing can all manipulate the way we understand news events.
- Pictures complement the narrative and conform to the news value simplicity.
- Pictures must provide viewers with clear signifiers (semiotics); narration or voice over only added when it can
- Meaningfully add to self-explanatory images.
News readers:
- All knowing – looks at and speaks directly to the audience (like priest in pulpit)
- Mid close up
- In command
- Delegates stories to the reporters
- The link between stories
- Authority – must look audience in eye so uses auto cue to avoid looking at notes – looking down or away indicates untrustworthiness.
- (Over reliance on male presenters – channel 5s Kirsty Young in late 1990s shook things up a bit, perching on the edge of a desk, walking around, bright busy newsroom, conversational rather than lecturing – new informality.
The reporters:
- Also looks the audience in the eye – confident
- Med shot – upper torso and head
Authority figures:
- Always mediated thru journalist / reporter, never to news reader.
- Looks at reporter or it can make them look shifty or desperate if they look at audience.
Interviewees:
- Profiled in ¾ style
- Looking slightly to side of camera or at interviewer, sometimes even out of shot
- Why? Control, authority, trust, mediated by interviewer.
Link conventions:
- Can be used to break up tedium of ‘talking heads’
- Noddy shots, cutaways: when interviewer can be seen ‘reacting’ by nodding etc.
- Pertinent images, graphics etc.
Piece to camera:
- Where the reporter stands in front of a scene where something dramatic has / is happening and speaks directly to the camera.
- Will always have the final say!
Criticism:
Uses of cutaways and noddy shots editing can cause conflict between broadcaster and subjects of news items.
Agendas:
The broadcasters’ agenda consist of:
- Their own news values (see Sue Lawley and the King is Dead)
- Conventions they use for delivery of the stories
- Political or ideological positions of the stories.
Format
- Music at start: rhythmic beat sense of urgency.
- Names of programmes indicative of content, unlike e.g. Cold Feet or 2,000 Acres of Sky
- TV more popular than papers for the news
- Gatekeepers – those who decide –m inclusion
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Types of programmes:
- Bulletins
- Updates
- Magazine types
- Serious news with analysis
- News flashes
- 24 hour
TV news different from radio
- Visual!
- Eyewitnesses on camera
- Interviews on camera
- Realtime events