Starting from this premise, we are also led down two paths: state control and dependence on authority. Two factors, according to the positions outlined in the paper, have both positive and negative effects on the structure and content of the bulletin.
On the one hand, it leads to extensive interventionism, not giving the channel enough authority to independently filter the news, but on many occasions the government provides clear signals on what is newsworthy and what goes out on air. According to the methodology followed however, the state also has a positive effect on the bulletin and this is the primary role that NTV bulletin also plays in promoting Nepal abroad and also becoming the voice and image of the country, as well as the connection of the Nepalese Diasporas with their homeland.
The methodology followed on the NTV television news analysis essentially brings the basic aspect of the Nepalese television scene; pitting privately owned TV organizations based obviously on private funding as opposed to the state channel that was created with different priorities and which has a different social role to play. A role that sometimes works positively for the news (or the fact that it has no problems with income from advertising despite its state funding) and which on other occasions restricts journalistic independence to the extent in which stories are formulated and presented, is channeled by institutionalized sources.
NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION
In order to be in a position to make certain judgments, criticize NTV’s TV news bulletin if one wishes, we have to be fully aware of the particularities of the state channel. What goes out on air is a result of many interdependent factors, touching upon both sociological and economic phenomena and essentially confirming the various mass media theories.
It can be said that the first thing to bear in mind is the NTV’s financial status as a non-profit organization. Modern media -as bureaucratic organizations – have clearly defined goals. Unavoidably, the productive procedure of each medium -namely how and what messages or products it will produce- are decided to a great extent by these defined goals that regulate its existence. And of all the goals characterizing modern mass media organizations (in the private sector) the prominent one, is maximizing profits.
At the end of 1940s, Atorno and HorkHaimer said:
“There is no longer the need for those involved in cinema and radio to pretend that they’re producing art. The truth is that they are nothing else but business. A business that turns into the garbage they consciously produce. They call themselves industries. And when the income of their managers is published, we cease to have any doubt regarding the social usefulness of the final products”
The above statement is not of course true in the case of NTV. Nepal’ state channel is a non-profit organization and despite its shortcomings. The main thing that none can suggest is- a great number of its programmes have social value.
STATE CONTROL
An important factor that has to be taken into account in this analytical paper of the state channels’ TV news bulletin is state intervention and control. The causes of this control both on NTV, and radio are related particular to historical circumstances, in which the channel was created and developed.
NTV keep developing in an era, where the capitalist society was moving from a monopoly stage to a state monopoly stage. The state takes on wider economic activities, controlling not just economic indicators but all parts of social life too. In this sense, Williams , R (1974 :33) says :
“one of these sectors was the media and here one might add that the BBC example is quite enlightening as regard to the need of the state to create electronic media.”
Nepal was on the reign of dictatorship from Rana for 104 years from 1846 right up to the establishment of democracy in 1950s and the time that NTV was founded, is very dictatorship under the single party monarchy. However, Nepalese citizens got the taste of modern development and world information from the establishment of this channel. Many political or media activists consider this step of the then-government was in publics favour though NTV has to serve more the government’s interest in assuring the public on whatever is undertaking on behalf of the government is relevant and worth.
Patty Scanell (1990) acknowledges this difficulty, and argues that an important distinction should be borne in mind when considering the idea of public service broadcasting. He suggests that:
“it is essential to distinguish between Public service as responsibility delegated to broadcasting authorities by the state, and the manner in which the broadcasting authorities have interpreted that responsibility and tried to discharge it. This raises, and makes central, the questions of interpretation. The concept of public service broadcasting has been interpreted in a variety of ways; each drawing out slightly different perspectives at different historical moment. What then is public service broadcasting”. Quoted in Lisa Taylor and A Andrew Willis (2007:107)
While taking into consideration about the historical meaning of the term Public Broadcasting Service and the institution under it, there could be various arguement about the co-ordination of NTV indeed. Public service broadcasting meant to serve the interest of public and to be funded by public’s property; the government’s subsidies. In the case of NTV, government’s intervention, censorship in the past (not now so far) has diminished the meaning behind the latent status NTV has as a Public Service Broadcaster.
Another major factor for the establishment of state control in radio and television internationally as mentioned by Williams , R (1974) in his book ‘Television : Τechnology and Cultural Forms’ was the rapid development of the weapons industry and the general militarization of society, particularly during the Cold War, pitting the United States against the Soviet Union.
Besides this, Nepal has its own particular social and political situation. It is a landlocked country whose 80% population depend on agricultural products. For several decades, before the founding of privately owned Radio and Television stations in the 1950s & 1985, the NTV essentially expressed government policy; it was a government front, through which the state put out its issues to the international community, starting with the Nepal’s sovereignty. One has to really emphasize NTV’s role during the period of monarchy. It was the voice of King and the connection with the Public. In this sense, it played an invaluable social role to some extent. However, situation today with NTV is a little different than it was before 2007.
DEPENDENT ON AUTHORITY
Each government wanted and still of course wants to control the mass media and more the state channel. Authority’s demand for control - to a greater or lesser extent -created the dependence of the media on the government. Media officials, are not autonomous when writing the news, but receive clear signals from credible and institutionalized sources, as to the facts that are considered ‘newsworthy’ and need to be in the bulletin. These sources are, as acccording to Breed , W (1955: 186):
“mainly individuals and organizations high up in the social hierarchy and mostly state officials and departments.”
The NTV has always been the primary receptor of such authority signals and messages in order to give out a situation that was to the interest of those in power. But this fact created conditions of interventionism and interdependence. In this case, the biggest problem is that, on many occasions, the NTV does not have the power to independently filter its news. It cannot formulate its own view and its news is a reflection of what authority desires.
The modern ethics of the journalistic profession defines a certain procedure of symbolic reproduction of news, known as ‘Interxtuality’, but this has to be objective. Every story, every single script must be the product of ‘intertextuality’, but this doesn’t mean that it cannot be researched, cross-referenced, thought about, filtered ou; before the final product comes to the viewer through the bulletin.
Modern ethics demands a medium through which news are transmitted (the journalist), to be objective -that presents a complete picture of all views around a certain issue and balance them out, by giving them equal weight. In this way, the viewers can formulate their own views and reach their own conclusions regarding importance of events.
Unfortunately and this is where the NTV gets it wrong, on many occasions that NTV did not live up to these expectations. On the contrary, it glorified authority and annihilated or castrated the opposing views. This is due to its control by the government of the time and the need to look good in the eyes of its employer -the state. In this instance, the government violated journalistic ethics. As long as the state channel is dependent on the government, such phenomena will continue, as the NTV will always be subservient to those in power.
THE HEADLINES
The headlines are an important part of the evening news. This is where the bulletin starts, but they also form the so-called teaser, through which the main stories are promoted at regular intervals before the news. “…It is vital that the teaser strikes a chord with the viewer, catches their attention, making them eager to find out more by watching the bulletin of course. It is the bait in other words with the goal of drawing the audience to NTV’s news. The headlines are supposed to be ready by four in the afternoon and if the need arises, they can be changed. But there is a deadline of doing that, it is seven in the evening, an hour before the bulletin starts. Other TV channels might have more leeway to replace headlines and I think is a disadvantage in being more flexible in this matter” Lisa Taylor & Andrew Wills (2007:66). They also include a chapter on narratives that:
“the drive to organize the material to events past, present and future into narrative structures informs virtually all discursive cultural practices: conversation, religion, history, dance and theatre” (ibid, 2007:66),
so does NTV to some extent in its evening news bulletin. Political conversation within the news, religious ceremonies by different religious groups and their practices also take the space in NTV’s evening news. This enables the viewer to know how the things related to their practices are going on. Audiences’ perceptions can sometimes be found to be changed with the hearings of such bulletins especially during the evening; most of viewer’s free time. This prime time broadcast of NTV’s news bulletin has a huge audience in number where NTV flows its information based on intertextuality and narratives. Andrew Tolson argues, narratives are “signs of chronological order”, so are the news placed in the bulletins in descending order by their importance and proximity.
Lisa Taylor and Andrew Willis wrote:
“Narratives are intertextual. They sometimes overlap other narratives-the same news story across days’ press, for example, or they deliberately reference other texts to play on audience knowledge” (2007:66).
Covering the news on the meeting of the cabinet, or the meeting held by major political parties, NTV bulletins follows this version of Taylor L. & Wills Andrew. So, in viewing such news story audience members will have differing expectations of the stories they encounter, often producing readings according to their social and personal experiences of narratives. Narratives in the bulletins appear so natural that the use of grammar in present tense in most situation makes the audience believe in what the news narratives are. Moreover, these news presents will regard as it happened to the audience members.
Taking the reference of Alverado (1987:120), narratives can be in any forms. As he mentions:
“Everything is narrated, the match, the birth, the funeral, the meal, what so and so said about such and such yesterday, today, and possibilities for tomorrow.”
Alverado’s this version explains the narrative and we can take it to mention the narratives in the headline or in any news bulletin. NTV’s narratives on news bulletin scrolls from major and important chapters of the news to less important and less situational one. Narratives on sports news in the bulletin gets the space in the end before repeating the headlines to conclude the entire bulletin session and similarly, the international news is placed short after the national issues but before the news on sports.
NTV & ADVERTISING
In the modern electronic media, the strengthening, promoting and intensification of consumerism becomes a ‘holy’ cause and in order to fulfill it, today’s capitalist society, conjures up and uses a variety of new mechanisms, foremost among them is ‘advertising’. This transformation of media into a means of spreading the consumerist society through truly amazing number of commercials presented by them, essentially makes as quoted by Williams R. (1982) advertising the umbilical ‘cord of the mass media’.
On this competitive stage and as the privately owned media, are frantically running for income through commercials, the NTV has no such concerns. Unlike Britain, where the BBC is not allowed money through advertising due to its state funding, the station enjoys a different status as it is allowed to sell its programmes in addition to the money it gets through the annual budget. In other words it can sell its programs. This is a major advantage, as despite its dependence on authority, it is not dependent on advertising from corporations and therefore the news bulletin cannot be controlled by these private firms. At least in this field, the NTV remains independent.
CONCLUSIONS
The evening news are quite similar to the theatre in many ways -the stage which is the studio, backstage (control room) and the actors, who are the chief editor and the reporters. However, the most basic thing they have in common is that the production of both requires hard work by those who are not visible. It’s fair to say that a news bulletin production is an exhausting job, requiring nerves of steel and a high degree of alertness. The reward of this tough endeavour, if one maintains objectivity and credibility, is a fine creative result for all those that took part in its production.
The evening news business therefore, is by no means a simple task. More than a hundred people contribute to the production of the NTV bulletin. It’s like a string of beads -made up of experiences, knowledge, academic and scientific qualifications. Each of these beads has to be strung together in the right way, in order to ‘get a good final product on air’. However, NTV undertakes a massive and decent effort at presenting a high quality news bulletin. After all, viewers trust the channel’s stories the most in times of major local and international events.
Of course, as in all jobs, it’s not a perfect picture. As every state organization, NTV has its bureaucracy; it is sometimes slow-moving, inflexible, with ineffective unionism on many occasions. There are many things that could be done a lot better, in a more productive manner, if bureaucracy was done away with. In order for NTV to reach a decision, it has to go through all sorts of channels and red tape, through many people, with different ideas, different way of thinking. The message takes for ever to go from the top to the base of the hierarchy. And most of the time, it is castrated on the way.
In addition, it would be naïve to deny that the NTV serves the government to a great extent. In the past few years, there’s been a serious effort to loosen this state stranglehold on the channel. However, this is a slow process and officials and staffs come under tremendous pressure on many occasions.
The government has a say at NTV. So do political parties and other organized non-governmental groups, each having its own interests and views. Privately owned channels might well broadcast trash but neither government nor parties, will so match blink an eye. However, they will comment on the slightest thing they don’t like about NTV. Given these conditions, people really do a great job, giving their heart and soul into the evening news, exhausting their every talent. Good luck to them and good luck to NTV!!
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Alverado, Manuel, Gutch, Robin and Wollen, Tana. (1987). Learning the Media: An Introduction to Media Teaching. London: Macmillan
Breed , W (1955). Social Control in the Newsroom, in Schramm. London: Macmillan
Dennis Mcquail.(2004). Mass Communication Theory. London: Sage
Hall, S. 1972 Media Power : The Double Bind , Fourth Symposium on Broadcasting policy ,University of Manchester .
NTV. (2009). Introduction to Nepal Television retrieved from
accesed on 9th May’09
Tolson, A. (1996). Mediations: Texts and Discourse in Media Studies. London: Edward Arnold
Williams , R .(1974) . Television : Τechnology and Cultural Forms . London :Fontana
Williams , R .(1980). Problems in Materialism and Culture . London : Verso .
Αdorno , TW and Horkheimer ,M (1979). Dialectic of Enlightenment. London :Verso
