TV+News+Update+1

"Hurricane News, Mostly Uninterrupted by Ads"

This //New York Times// article by Stuart Elliot is important for the reason that during Hurricane Irene’s arrival to the east coast, advertisements were no disruption for the hurricane news, especially in New York City. Even with high ratings during the hurricane news coverage, there were few to no advertisements during the peak of this transcendent news story. Therefore, this news article is important and interesting because it shows us that depending on the importance of the news event, the advertisement schedule is affected. In this case, a negative impact was felt for advertisements in lieu of the significance that this special news coverage on Hurricane Irene had on the television news industry. For this reason, it is also important in relationship with the television viewers, because it indirectly tends to mislead the news consumer that advertisements come in second place, which tends to be a common misperception. It is ironic since advertisements are one of the main ways in which the television news industry has historically obtained the most profit out of it. For the television news industry to have done this in this particular news event, one may come to believe that television news is guided by the importance of the news story, and not advertisements, which is not always the case. It seems that we simply have to understand that these types of news events are “the Super Bowl for a news operation.”

[|New York Times article]

Manuel Martinez-Ortega

"TV News Becomes Interactive"

As we all know, television news has changed as quickly as the past decade. Houston Chronicle writer Ken Hoffman discusses one change regarding the Television News Industry in his article, “TV News Becomes Interactive”. Hoffman asks the simple question as to why local news stations, along with the major ones, now include comments that the public make on their website, tweets included. Before the Internet and social media took over our lives, the television news industry was all about delivering pure, solid news to viewers. It seems now that the TV news industry is “hungry for viewers”, as Hoffman puts it, and will do almost anything to captivate sa larger audience, even at the expense of their news story. It’s nice that audiences in today’s society have the opportunity to express their feelings towards a particular topic via social media and the Internet, however, they don’t belong on a live news broadcast. This article also touches on the fact that television news seems to be straying away from the actual story, to people’s opinions of that story instead.

[|TV News Becomes Interactive Article]

Laura Barrick

"Big Bird to the Rescue"

To most people, public broadcasting provides our society with fair and unbiased news. However, instead of delivering serious journalism, many people feel as if public television, such as PBS, is focusing too much on shows that don’t tackle the serious issues going on in the world, globally and locally. Although Big Bird, Elmo, and Ernie are pivotal characters for PBS, they are targeted mainly for children and don’t address the issues people want to see about news. Out of all 365 public television stations, very few of them have made new advances in the way they provide news to the public. Elizabeth Jensen’s article Big Bird to the Rescue gives an in depth view of how public broadcasting, especially television, has the ability to save serious journalism as long as changes are made in the way news is provided to the public. As of now, there are only a couple of television stations experimenting with the way they do news. One of them being KPBS, San Diego’s local public television and radio station, located here on our very own campus of San Diego State University. Tom Karlo, general manager of KPBS, said “I thought if we could be number one in radio news why can’t we be number one in local TV news….” This is precisely why in 2009 the television and radio station combined its public television, radio, and web all into one single production center so people in all departments work together. In order to give the audience as much local news as possible the station is coming out with a new nightly TV program in September. To follow the theme of Morning Edition, KPBS’s morning radio show, they will be launching the television show Evening Edition, which will be hosted by Joanne Faryon. KPBS reporters will not only work on just radio, but television as well. I feel the new direction KPBS is going in regarding how they present news on public television is a huge step towards giving people the type of serious journalism that is needed.

[|Big Bird to the Rescue]

Taylor Baresic

New York Observer Article
 * "Ticker Taped: The 9/11 News Crawl" **

Everyone is familiar with the small scrolling text at the bottom of the screen during a newscast, but few remember the event that made this feature a staple of every news operation. Sure, this little piece of technology had been around before during nightly sports recaps or the occasional breaking news event, but it was never a permanent fixture of every news broadcast as it is today. The morning of September 11th, 2001 changed that for the next 10 years and the foreseeable future, with the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center towers creating a news event so monstrous, no TV news anchor could possibly inform the public fast enough, so therefore the TV news ticker was put in place. Now, even a decade later, we are still seeing the news crawl on the bottom of the screen during the slowest of news days, so why are they still being used? This technology was supposed to be used for emergency news updates, not everyday run-of-the-mill local stories. Kat Stoeffel put it perfectly in his //New York Observer// article: **//"Cable news wears the crawl like a politician wears a flag pin."// ** As we approach the 10-year anniversary of the heinous terrorist attack on our nation, it is time to reflect on the changes made in our society, and the TV news crawl is finally being recognized as an unnecessary feature of everyday life. Hundreds online have created petitions to have the ticker removed, but still their wishes are not being met. The main argument against the news crawl is that it removes the intimacy between the viewer and the anchor, an intimacy that had made viewers loyal to a particular station in years past. MSNBC had tried to remove the ticker in 2002, but no other stations followed suit, therefore it was put back in place. It has become a very real possibility that the ticker tape is here to stay and will never die, but some TV news purists still hold out hope their news will return one day without the distraction of scrolling text in the future. [|This video] proves that even cats want the TV ticker tape to go away, so isn't it about time it is done?

Josh French

**9/11 programming and special events**
With the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks American channels will air more than 75 hours of news programming such as memorials, documentaries, drama or live broadcast from the site. One would think that major tv channels would air special coverage too. However, major channels like Fox and NBC announced they will be covering a variety of differenet programs not related with the attacks. Fox announced they will be airing repeats of "the Simpsons" and "famili guy" while NBC will be broadcasting the NFL regular season in which the Dallas Cowboys will play the New York Jets. I found this article important because it will be interesting to compare the ratings of the channels on Sunday. It will be ineteresting to se how many people tuned in to the special coverahe of the anniversary and how many people tuned in tu regular programming. [|some channels forgoing 9/11 programming]

Paola Cuevas

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