More Bad News 

1980, London, Glasgow University Media Grouo. 

Published by Routledge & Kegan Paul, 

UAL elibrary 

ITN – “the first priority of a television news programme is to pres et the viewer with a plain unvarnished account of happenings, as free as humanly possible of bias, and making the maximum possible use of television’s unique capacity to show these happenings.’

– the rate of image change in the news. Broadcasters assume the attention span and interest of the audiences

Commercial jingles – “the folksongs of consumer society’

“The music emphasises the image the television companies wish to sustain – that the news is balanced and impartial- in no way are the news personnel personally involved. The news occupies a neutral space in the sequence into which events and facts project themselves almost mechanically. The clacketyclack of the teleprinters, the electronic bleeps that have become the predominant themes of news music draw attention tot the processes of news collection and presentation, and reflect the typographical origins of news. The news comes, the music suggests; through neutral air wave on to neutral typewriter, a balanced mix of electronic show business and print.’ P182

“Every image embodies a way of seeing. Even a photograph. For photographs are not, as is often assumed, a mechanical record. Everytime we look at a photograph, we are ware, however slightly, of the photographer selecting that sight from an infinity of other possible sights.” – John Berger, Ways of Seeing.

“The television news audience is invite to watch a sequence of miscellaneous ‘items’, often interspersed with plugs for programmes to be shown later, channel announcements and commercial texlevision, ad breaks” ch10 halting the flow.

Conclusion:

“Contrary to the claims, conventions Nd culture of television journalism, the news is not a neutral product. For television news is a cultural artifsct; it is a sequence of socially manufactured messages, which carry many of the culturally dominant assumptions of our society. From the accents of the newscasters to the vocabulary of camera angles; from who gets on and waht questions they are asked, via selection of stories to presentation of bulletins, the news is a highly mediated product’