Introduction to the news

I watched the BBC One Look East broadcast from the 21-3-2016. The first story they covered in the broadcast was the East Anglia devolution. Then they went on to a story about a bus in Norwich being evacuated due to a suspicious package being left on the bus. The next story was about a factory worker who had been found guilty of his pregnant ex girlfriends murder. They then discussed changing the law on how far along a women has to be for someone to get charged with child destruction. This story was then followed up by a story of another women who was murdered by her boyfriend when she was only days away from giving birth and showed the work the charity safer place does to protect pregnant women in abusive relationships. The last story was on a a Chelmsford united fan who was left with brain damage after being attacked after a match in Southend and the money his family are raising to get him home equipment to look after him. As you can see they started the show with the most important story that will effect everyone in the region. They then ended the broadcast with a sad story that left a positive message at the end. The starting sequence of Look East- East broadcasts show footage of regional associated places. The audio is striking giving it a sense of importance and grabbing the audiences attention.

Amelia Reynolds presented this broadcast, she is a presenter for the BBC evening regional programme Look East and a new journalist. A newsreaders job is to present the news to an audience via television, radio or internet. Many newsreaders such as Amelia also work as a journalist helping to collect the news they are going to present. They are usually presenting in a studio however they may be required to do a remote broadcast meaning they have to go to a related location to do the broadcast. The basic skills required for being a newsreader is being able to read clearly off a monitor, therefore you need good language and reading skills for the job. A newsreader also needs to have a confident presence and tone in order for the audience to want to listen and be engaged in what they are talking about.

News ordering is a term used to describe what order the news will be presented in during a broadcast. Typically the first story will be the one that is seen as most important. The broadcast will usually end with a positive story which is referred to as the 'and finally' story. A prospect list is a list of the possible stories they will cover in the broadcast. This list can change at any point before they go on air due to cancellations and other factors disrupting the story from going ahead. News is constantly changing and sometimes the prospect list will change due to the fact a bigger story has come up. This is why it's important for the reporters to respond quick to news. Sometimes there are no substantial news stories and they have to use minor stories to fill the time, this is know as a slow news day. Galtung and Ruge specified a list of news values referring to the importance the story and the factors that put them at the top of the agenda. If a story scores highly in each value then it's likely to come first in the news broadcast, these are usually stories that will have the biggest impact on the viewers. 



      
Negativity is the first value they identified in their list. This value concentrates on bad news involving death, tragedy, natural disasters etc. In recent news a story about two 15 year old girls who tortured and killed a women in her home made the headlines, this would be an example of a negative news story. Another value is closeness to home, according to Galtung and Ruge people are more interested
in stories that are close to them or involve people from their country. For example in the news recently was a story about an ex leeds united managing director being beaten up in a Dubai jail. News is constantly being updated and people want to get the latest news updates when possible. Thats why another news value they came up with was recency. For example the story I mentioned previously about the 15 year old girls was put on the website 34 minutes ago. 

Currency is another value, it is basically the opposite to recency because it the stories that have been deemed valuable over time as they have been ongoing for a while. For example the Madeline McCann story. Galtung and Ruge also looked at stories that will have a continuing impact e.g. a war and the indentified currency as one of the values. For example the war in Syria is something that makes the news a lot and in the news recently was a story about people being missing after an attack by militants on a cement factory. Uniqueness is another news value and it refers to stories that are strange and different. For example a recent headline is 'Cat crime fighters could collar county Durham criminals.' Some people prefer stories that are easy to explain, thats why they also identified simplicity as one of the values. For example 'Co-op boss asks for big pay cut.' Another value is personality and this is where a story centres around a certain person. Newspapers really like these stories particularly if they are about someone well known. For example stories about Kate Middleton whether is a big story or not. 

Another value they deemed important was expectedness. This basically means how predictable was the news and does the story match the typical ordering and reach it's audience. For example look back at the story about the 15 year old girls again, this is typically a story that would come first in the news as it is a negative story involving two young girls making it shocking and more likely to cause the most impact. Elite nations and people is another news value. Stories that cover important people of nations are considered more news worthy than stories that cover less important nations or people. For example stories about Barack Obama are always considered important. Also an important factor when setting the news order in exclusitivity. Newspapers and news programmes rate highly when they are the first to cover the story. Finally the last value is size. If a story is going to impact a lot of people or involves a lot of people then it is considered more valuable. For example this recent headline 'EU referendum: PM 'makes no apology. for £9m EU leaflets.' 

I looked at a BBC News broadcast from 7.4.2016. The story I focused on was the one about the two 15 year old girls who were given life after brutally murdering a woman named Angela Wrightson. Back in 2014 Angela was found in her home in Hartlepool with more than 100 injuries. Today the two girls responsible have been sentenced after an eight week trail to a life sentence with a minimum term of 15 years. The people involved in this story is the two girls and Angela. The girls are represented in a bad way as they are referred to as killers, whereas Angela if presented as being vulnerable as she is describes as she is described as ' a vulnerable women left to struggle alone.' However they interviewed a social worker who gives a more compassionate outlook on the girls situations and say they were also vulnerable. She also talks about how we need to find a way to safe guard and adults as well as children. I felt sorry for the women who was murdered when watching this broadcast as she is portrayed as the victim as they say 'she fits the stereotype of a typical victim.' This suggests that she wasn't at all at fault for what happened. I didn't feel sorry for the girls due to the seriousness and vulgarness of their crime. The structure of this story was set out by starting with the presenter giving an update of what has happened in the case and then it goes to the social worker who talks about what happened and then the importance of looking after vulnerable people. It then goes back to the newsreaders who conclude what the social worker was saying. Although there is no narrative used, the audience can get a clear understanding of what has happened and the issues that the coverage of this story and the interview is trying to address. 

News stories are influences in many ways and there are many biases within them. The biases could come from producers, photographers, writers, interviewers etc. one way in which biases are present in the news is through selection and omission. An editor has the choice of whether a story is used in that specific broadcast. They can also choose whether or not to use or leave out particular parts of the story. this could influence the audiences opinions on the story. one example I found showing this kind of bias was the story about David Cameron spending £9 million on leaflets telling people to vote to stay in the EU referendum. When looking at the majority of the coverage of this story i found many quotes from other politicians saying it was a waste of money. There were also words such as undemocratic and propaganda used negatively throughout most of the stories. When looking at the Independent i found they took a similar stance on the story however they also mentioned the information below, balancing out either side of the story.

Biases through placement is another form is bias within the media and news. If a story is placed on the front page of a newspaper or at the beginning of a news broadcast it would be seen as important. However in it was placed in the back or the last story on a broadcast then it would be seen as unimportant and may not be read/ viewed. Radio and television choose stories that will get them the most ratings and put them first. In the broadcast on 6.4.2016 from BBC's world news today you can observe this kind of bias. The first story is about the length that China's elite is going to get their millions out of the country. The last story is about how diabetes has reached a record level effecting 1 in 11 people across the globe. This is an example of placement bias as it is showing the stories that people would prefer to hear about and that are current rather than something as important as diabetes. 

There can also be biases in headlines as they can lead people to think that the story is something quite different to what it actually is. They can also make a story sound exciting or really bad through the headline but when it comes to actually reading the story it could be boring or not as bad as they've made out. For example this headline from FOX news suggests that Barrack obama is racist and they have proof. However the article has no relevance to the headline what so ever and has just been used to get people to read their article. 

There can also be biases through pictures. For example if a paper was to use this photo of David Cameron compared to this one of Borris Johnson people would probably be more inclined to see Cameron as a serious person and a good PM whereas they would see Johnson as silly and unreliable. However it's just through the choice of photos that these assumptions are made. Also the angles of the photos are biased too as the picture of Cameron is taken from a low angle making him look powerful.

Captions and the words used in them to describe whats happened are very important as they can influence the readers impression of the news event or person. In the screenshot below from the Guardian you can see this kind of bias as they have put the word fairytale in inverted commas suggesting that it wasn't everyones idea of a fairytale wedding. It almost adds humour to the story as if they are looking down on the homeless man. In BBC's coverage of the story they even mentioned the fact he was standing by a bin.