all television, factual as well as fictional, aspires towards the condition of entertainment How does this apply to television news?
JP Adamson
“…all television, factual as well as fictional, aspires towards the condition of entertainment” – How does this apply to television news?
Television has always held the responsibility of being informative, educational and entertaining, ever since its conception in the halcyon days of Lord Reith. But to what extent do these factors link with one another? Is it possible to produce a programme, news or otherwise, that is informative and educational that still maintains audience share without employing methods of entertainment? It seems that indeed all programmes do contain elements of the three factors listed above, the news being no exception. In this essay I will distinguish the techniques used to make television news more entertaining, and why they are necessary, with references to specific examples of media texts.
Initially it is important to distinguish exactly what motives the audience have for obtaining information and why they choose to do so through television news. It is now more important than ever for individuals within contemporary culture to be well informed and to have a detailed understanding of current events on a global scale. There are a number of mediums through which an individual can obtain this information. These include radio news, television news, print news and news via the Internet. Each of these of these sources have their obvious advantages and disadvantages and so there are also a number of deciding factors for which medium one should choose. However, many people in fact use a combination of these sources throughout their lifetime as they also vary in convenience. Print news is most sophisticated of the sources, accommodating many different types of readership that accommodates class, gender, political persuasion etc. This diversity within the medium affords print news the opportunity to be less selective in its output, hence many articles unfit for television news can be found in the print news. Because of these differences in audience diversity and penetration, and the fact that print news has a much more relaxed timeframe for delivery (not a rigid half an hour system as with televised news) it can afford to be the benchmark news service. However, that is not to say that the other mediums do not play a vital role in news delivery. Radio news, for example, is ideal for people whom need headlines quickly or cannot otherwise access all of the other sources easily, e.g. someone travelling to work in a car. Internet news is again different; as it is a fixed 24 hour service it can afford to go into even more depth and produce even more specific articles than print news, making it ideal for research or analysis. By taking all of these factors into account it is possible to see just how important television news is as a news delivery service. While it does suffer time constraints, the television news can perhaps still provide a more impartial, concise and broad based service than any of the other mediums.