The first lesson in a new module (which, it’s worth mentioning, is being taken by Angus Scott) definitely got off to a good start this week. In this section of the course, we aim to be studying the way that TV News is put together, structured, edited and prepared before finally being released to the viewing public. TV News is a whole different world from Radio Broadcasting in the sense that, obviously, TV relies on the use of visuals as well as sound to tell the story. This means that TV News is multi-sensory and allows audiences to connect more to the important news stories as they don’t just want to hear about what is happening in the world, but they want to be able to SEE it as well, which leads to them caring more about what is going on in the news.
Certain visuals and pictures of events have the ability to stick out in people’s minds and instantly remind people of exactly what the event was, and these are normally iconic, ground-breaking events with visuals and pictures that are equally as iconic. In fact, it has been suggested that still pictures of certain events are able to stir up more memories and be more effective than actual, moving film.
We dabbled into the question of whether 24 hour news is actually killing big news stories, as when they are constantly running people lose interest if there are no new developments, or whether it is actually managing to bring people closer to the news than ever before, bringing powerful news stories to the people AS they are happening.
After watching a reel of the biggest news stories of the last 50 years, we decided that one of the key moments in news from that reel was the report on famine in Ethiopia, not just because it was a groundbreaking report from a foreign country, not just because of the material of the report but also because of the fact that this then led on to spawn Live Aid and many hunger charities and water charities, all of which stemmed from this one iconic news report on famine.
News has moved on so much in the last few years, in content, colours, how things get reported on and where from, and the focus of modern news stories has shifted towards a more “personality”-led news basis – basically, people want to watch news about people they know and recognise. Not necessarily just celebrities or Hollywood A-Listers, but people they know the faces and the names of including sports personalities, MPs and members of Royalty. Modern news stories are centred a lot more on recognisable people and pop culture personalities, and that is mostly down to the fact that there is a visual recognition to them in the news stories – we are seeing pictures of their faces and hearing their names used more and more in the news.
The trick to writing gripping news stories now is to find an angle that involves people, as it’s now the humanity side of the news stories that people are now, as a trend, becoming more and more interested in. Take for instance, the latest story of the Chilean Miners – the story is a human interest story and it makes for attention grabbing news because it revolves around survival and re-uniting families. The structure of the news piece itself starts off with the latest news first, as it’s the updates of the current situation that people are obviously most eager to know. The news piece then moves on and deals with the events of the story that have led up to that point, and what is happening to them now. It shows all of the miners together in a room, and that means that the audience can then quantify exactly what the news piece is about i.e. the amount of people that were trapped, what they look like, who they are, etc. Essentially, the news report about all of the Chilean Miners being safely rescued from the mines is about the humanity of the situation, and that is what a majority of the audiences want to see from this piece, and is the reason they are watching it to begin with.
When creating a news piece for TV broadcasting, it is your words that should reflect and, more importantly, emphasise the pictures being shown. You don’t just want the narration to be an audio description of what the audience is already watching; you want it to make them feel what everything is like during the making of this breaking news. It should add to the experience of the news story, and add an emotional and humanising element. It is important to remember that the whole report isn’t a one person piece to camera, either – these should only be used when it is important to do so, either to start up or round off the report, or whenever this visual device will add to the story or involve you directly, making you part of the story yourself. Visual shots at the end of the piece also help create the right kind of tone you want to set with the piece. These make the most impact by utilising the things that aren’t in the foreground, i.e. the lack of people left at the mining site and everything being packed away.
The best way to learn how to structure pieces like this is to deconstruct the way other reporters make their stories, and think about why each shot, interview and speech is used and why they appear in the order they do. And it’s these stories that make the most impact once they are aired on News Networks around the globe.
I think that the TV News Broadcasting module is going to prove very insightful over the next few weeks and will indeed change the way I currently view the news, as I will likely be looking at the different ways each news story is structured from start to finish.
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