Today was a return to normality with Dr Bruce Redman once
again taking the reins as lecturer. The focus of this lecture was ‘News
Values’; Redman used the ‘newlessness’ of this weekend to outline his slightly
existentialist point of what be the headlining stories if no real newsworthy
stories were happening in the world. If there had been no protests in Sydney
and Kate Middleton nude photos hadn’t leaked what would be the front page
story? This segued in Redman’s point
that millions of events are happening throughout the world on any given day,
but that newspapers often select stories to suit their own preferences: the
emphasis on celebrity in the case of Kate Middleton, selection of stories that
pack an impact, if the story is of interest to the news broadcaster’s
identified audience, as well as local news being given preference. Redman’s examination of certain story
‘angles’ was interesting, demonstrating that news programs tend to gravitate
towards stories with predictability and simplicity, rather than complex topics
such as conflicts in Palestine.
The
final part of Redman’s presentation briefly looked at the tabloidisation of
newspapers, with the hiring of lazy, incompetent journalists; Redman made brief
mention of the News of the World scandal and what was likely to happen to Newscorp once Murdoch died. An
interesting idea Redman had was that Google may eventually become a major
provider for news...I’m not sure exactly how I feel about that. The lecture concluded on a slightly
depressing note with Redman analysing the future of the news and how trashy
programs like Today Tonight are very popular in the community but do not
sufficiently report what is happening in the world. However programs such as
these get big audience numbers, which in turn influence the decisions of news
executives to produce more junk rather than substantial news stories.
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