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What is the News? Getting you thinking …
Key Idea: The mass media select the information that they give us. We do not
have a true overall picture of what is happening in the world, but a preselected view, which may or may not influence our opinions about what is
happening around us.
Stories are printed in the newspaper for reasons other than their importance
to people. Sometimes they are chosen because they are entertaining or
support someone's political views.
Value laden and value free
You have come across the idea that people have values that affect
what they think and do all the way through the modules of this course.
Value laden is when opinions become mixed up with facts so that
emotions are all tied in with arguments. The news presented by the
media tends to be value laden.
Language contains emotions
This is a self-evident fact. Language is very emotional, and if it were
not, we could not have poetry. Lots of words and ideas create strong
emotions in people and you can influence people by the words that you
use. Many words cannot be used in polite company at all. This is not
because of the sound of them but because of the emotions that they
create in certain people.
Value laden headlines
All words have emotional meanings and associations. Headlines often
use such words to catch the eye so that people will buy the newspaper.
Take the following headlines:
* The vicar is guilty of sexual assault alleges mother of boy.
* Randy vicar groped my boy claims weeping and brokenhearted
mother.
The first headline is value free. It states a fact. The second headline
is value-laden because it carries facts and emotions. The emotional
words are the ones that contain more than just a fact. Which headline
would make you want to read the story? Probably the second would.
An editor needs to make his/her paper interesting to sell copies of it
and to get advertising. S/he will have to use emotional language to sell
the newspaper and make stories seem worth reading. Headlines have
to be catchy and fun. They use short words and puns to save print and
grab the attention. This helps to make the headlines value-laden.
How do editors choose what to put into the news?
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An editor is a person who chooses what should be published in books,
magazines or newspapers. An editor will choose what can be
broadcast on a TV or radio programme. The most important
consideration of an editor is to make the programme interesting to the
potential audience. This will also apply to news programmes.
There are certain factors, which will influence the judgement of the
editor and make some stories more likely to be in the news than others.
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Pictures: Certain pictures and visual images stay in the mind better
than others do. Newspapers like to have a big picture on the front
page and TV editors like a story, which will have good video
pictures. Picture stories are more likely to be in the news than other
stories.
Pace: Papers and TV news programmes like a wide range of
different stories to fill up the news. They often like funny stories or
heart-warming human-interest stories. Stories about rich people and
celebrities, or stories about the Royal Family are always good to
make people take an interest in a story.
Silly Season Stories: Sometimes, when there is little happening in
politics, there is not much to put into the newspapers. Almost any
story will get printed. This is known as 'silly season publishing'.
Stories about aliens kidnapping people or stories about corn circles
or talking parrots will all find their way into the newspapers.
Ethnocentrism: This word means that we are only interested in
things that happen in our own country. We like stories about people
who are close to us and people that we know. Disasters at home
will get huge news coverage, whereas problems abroad are often
ignored.
Folk Devils and Moral Panics: Certain stories become fashionable
because people can worry and get upset about them. Good
examples would be stories about child abuse, famines and wars.
The stories are about things that are really important, but although
the famines, wars, child abuse and crimes still carry on, the news
reports have moved on to something else which is fashionable.
Media Hype: People will do silly things just to get noticed. They say
rude things, appear naked in magazines, wear silly hats and run the
London Marathon dressed as clowns just to get themselves noticed
and in the news. Lots of photographs in newspapers are examples
of hype. Many charities use examples of hype to publicise their
good cause.
Political bias: Many newspapers and magazines support certain
political causes. They report news that favours their political point of
view. They may be really unpleasant about people from the other
political point of view. People will buy papers that give them a view
of the world that they find reassuring and that they can understand.
Go through a magazine or newspaper to find examples of hype
pictures.
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What magazines specialise in news or stories about celebrities? Ask
around and make a list. What types of stories do they specialise in?
Editing a newspaper: Practical exercise
Your group is the editorial committee of a major national newspaper.
Over the past 24 hours each of these events has occurred. You have to
sell as many copies of your paper as possible, so you have to make it
very exciting.
 A royal prince has announced that he is homosexual.
 Thieves have stolen £40,000,000 in cash from the Bank of England.
 Your local Town football club has won the football league.
 The government intends to tax all meat products by 20%.
These are exaggerated but they do represent different types of news
stories.
 Decide which stories will affect the lives of ordinary people most.
 Decide which stories will sell most newspapers.
 Are your two lists the same?
Censorship and Free Speech
Although newspapers and news programmes can sometimes express
opinions as though they were facts, you should also be aware that
there are rules that govern what you can and cannot write and say in
Britain. If the government allows people to write and say anything that
they wish, they have the right to free speech. In theory, in Britain, we
have free speech.
If people have restrictions over what they can say or do, this is known
as censorship. In some societies, there is strong censorship so that if
you criticise the government in any way, you can end up in prison or
'disappeared'. There is censorship in the following areas in British
society.
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Blasphemy laws: You cannot say anything that offends Christian
belief. Many people of other religions feel this to be unfair.
Libel and slander laws: Libel means that you cannot print lies
about anyone in a newspaper or book. Slander means that you
cannot say anything untrue about anyone. It is not against criminal
law to slander or label anyone. If you want to accuse someone of
slander or libel, then you have to ask a lawyer to take the case to
court for you. This can be extremely expensive so only the wealthy
usually do this.
The Official Secrets Act: If you work for the government then you
must sign the Official Secrets Act. You may not tell anyone about
your work. This is to protect National Security, but the government
could use it to protect itself if it makes a mistake or if it wants to
spread propaganda.
Contempt of court: If a law case is in progress then you cannot
write or say anything about what is happening. This is to protect
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people who are appearing in court. Things that they are hearing
outside the court may influence the jury.
Prevention of Terrorism Act: Terrorists try to use the publicity that
they gain from bombing and other acts of violence to make people
think about and understand the cause that they feel that they are
fighting for. The government has tried to stop this in the case of the
IRA by making it illegal for anyone to broadcast the voices of the
IRA or any other terrorist organisation. For a long period of time,
actors had to say the words that were actually spoken by the
terrorists.
Film grades: Films are allocated a certificate according to their sex
and violence content. Children under certain ages are not allowed
to watch certain films.
TV station rules: The television companies operate a number of
their own rules, which are a form of censorship. Most companies
only show films, which have a content of sex and violence after 9
o'clock. Political parties are given equal amounts of time to
broadcast their messages. Films on TV often have swear words
bleeped out or changed. Pop music that is really sexual in content
tends not to be played on BBC.
The Race Relations Act: This Act makes it illegal to say or do
anything that could be considered to incite racial hatred.
Independent Learning Exercise:
You will need to support the material on this sheet with your own
reading and research drawn from textbooks.
Look at recent textbooks and research online to create a PowerPoint
with examples drawn from current affairs and recent research to show
how the media may create news.
Knowledge and Understanding
What do the following words and ideas in the sheet mean?
Editor, blasphemy, censorship, free speech, silly season, headline,
value-laden, value free.
Personal Research
Are the film censorship categories for children effective? Do a survey of
children to see how much sex and violence that the children are able to
see on TV and on video.
Examination style question
Outline and assess the view that the mass media do not always give a
true picture of the outside world in their coverage of the news.
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