CI 5472: Media Analysis

While I was watching the news (Fox 9 News--it was the first one I flipped to) I noticed that there were more local than national news stories—which I understood and expect from a local news program. For the most part, stories These stories ranged from brief overviews of national and world events to community stories. The longest amount of time was spent on a news piece recounting a memorial service held at Ft. Hood in Texas after 13 people were killed by a shooter, a health piece on a local boy who is battling a rare and serious disease, a look inside the Petter’s case, a long segment on weather, a news story on an older St. Paul couple facing foreclosure, and the follow-up account of a stab victim in St. Paul. I was surprised by the length of the weather story as well as the 5-6 minute account of the young boy who is recovering from brain surgery and therapy. Weather is important and the story about the boy is uplifting, but much less time was spent on trying to determine whether or not President Obama will be sending more troops to Afghanistan or if terrorists in the Middle East had gotten their hands on U.S. weaponry. These issues seem more newsworthy than the small health piece that was very specific and the back-and-forth banter of the weatherman and the anchor news reporters.
Overall, it seemed that in order to get through a variety of news stories the reporters spent a small amount of time on stories—enough to mention the story and quote a source—before moving on. This allows the audience to hear a variety of stories in a short amount of time. They also use images and video clips to give the audience more information about the story than they can report in a short amount of time. The stories they spent more time on included eyewitness accounts and interviews with family members or experts in an area. The voice of those being accused of something was usually not heard unless it was a paraphrase or quote that adds to their guilt. Interviews lend a sense of credibility to the stories, especially if they are experts—doctors, lawyers, members of executive or director boards, et. al.. The anchors used their voices to set the tone for the story--letting you know how to react to the story from their tones alone. The anchors themselves were a white man and an African American woman--which was a nice mix to see--yet the stories typically focused on white members of the community and nation unless they were involved in crime stories.


The shows I watch are The Office and Bones, as well as movies featured on HBO. As for news sources, I check the news on AOL Online and BBC America Online. The Office is broadcast on NBC which is owned by General Electric, Bones is a show on FOX which is owned by News Corporation, HBO and AOL are both owned by Time Warner, and BBC America is owned by the British Broadcasting Company. News Corp and Time Warner are major media producers being two of the leading media conglomerates in the U.S. While this means that they have the ability to provide national news and high quality media, it also means that these companies have a major hold in the media market. Eventually this control can become a monopolistic and influence what the American people receive from the media.

Activity:
In order to examine the differences between different local news stations, I think it would be beneficial to have students watch at least two different local news channels and compare the news reports of each channel. They can observe the different stories that are aired as well as the different ways in which channels report different stories--do they use the same footage, witnesses, quotes, etc. If they are able to, they can also note the different techniques used within the broadcast that appeal to the audience--are these the same between stations or do they differ? How effective are the techniques? From their observations students will be asked to identify which station seems more reliable to them and why. Students can then reflect upon their findings and report them back to the rest of the class. From these reflections the class can determine which news sources they find to be the most effective and reliable--this can lead to further descussion as to why students made these decisions.