Using examples, discuss the view that news and current affairs programming cannot be serious and keep an audience.

Various methods were used to achieve this, but the most popular was to insight the idea of a villain in the audiences mind. They would focus on stories which had child molesters or murders so they then had a hate figure which they could watch. They would then continue to watch, as they would like to see what happens to these people afterwards. They would often heighten the impact of these figures also, by portraying them with ugly character drawing, or against a black background. Making him seem darker and more evil. They would mention the crime he/she had supposable committed, even though the case in question had still not been concluded.

Because this process worked, other stories such as police rescues and hero stories were left out of news broadcasts, as they had no villain figure to latch onto, and as such would not keep the audiences attention.

The idea of the villain has become so popular that even heroic figures, are made to look evil, such as the Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston divorce. Both of these celebrities are much loved, but they have recently decided to get divorced. They made each of them look villainous, by listing each others possible reasons why they were getting divorced. It is common knowledge that 4 in every 5 marriages ends in divorce, but none of them make the news. But just because of this couples background, it was splashed onto the front of every newspaper in the world. They felt it was entertainment to the public. This meant that real news stories were omitted or edited down so that we do not receive the full picture.

'Much of today's news has deteriorated into gossip, sensationalism and manufactured controversy'.

President Richard Nixon, USA

Currently, we have a Celebrity case in the trial stages, which has had the most news interest since the OJ trial. Michael Jackson, singer has been charged on child molestering. Now this case is interesting as his celebrity status may have been used to create the crime in question, and he has a large number of fans who are willing to support him. Because of such, they cannot have their typical villain as they would normally have, for if they were to make him look evil, they would lose a large percentage of their viewers which believe him innocent. Therefore, to report this, they have portrayed him against a brown and yellow texture background. This is a rather neutral colour. They have also stopped using words which would implied evil intent, and used the term 'Misinterpreted' more often. They are trying to show neutrality so that both supporters and non-supporters will watch the news event.

The trail itself is not available to broadcast, so certain channels (Sky one) have decided to present a daily re-construction of the days events in court, with actors portraying the witnesses. This is for entertainment purposes only.

The audience have no impact on the decision making process, and it has no actual effect on our daily lives. Until a final verdict has been submitted, it is simple a space filler in the networks time-slot. It does however have an audience, who will be watching these reconstructions. We have no evidence to support that what they are showing us is actually true, therefore they have the power to manipulate the scenes they show us. Especially when you consider that a case last 8 hours per day, and they only have a one hour show. Several hours of important evidence must have been omitted from the reconstruction.

The network has decided to only show what it deems as entertaining.

This means we are not getting the full picture. And our vision of the facts is incomplete.

But can news broadcasts be truthful? Long trials such as this, have to be edited down in order to fit into the network schedule, and stories have to be omitted depending on there political relevance and how it might effect important parties involved with the running of the station (e.g. the sponsors). Material which is also considered graphic and too violent for TV must be excluded. Because of this, we will never get the full picture.

As entertainment goes, the network has to keep us interested, and so will manipulate the stories THEY think are interesting, into becoming more visual and dynamic.

Unless we are there in person, all news will be subjective to interpretation. The reporter, editor and producer all decide what to show the audience, and we are getting a bias view of the world events.

President Richard Nixon quotes:

http://www.tvnewslies.org/html/explanation.html

Mary Mapes - Fired!

http://www.mensnewsdaily.com/archive/s/stix/2004/stix121204.htm

Code of Ethics

http://library.thinkquest.org/17067/protect/nfamethics.html

Objectivity

http://library.thinkquest.org/17067/entertain/nfobjectivity.html