The decision that news departments should be money-makers has resulted in far fewer resources being allocated towards foreign coverage and foreign bureaus, less on-the-ground reporting, and the consolidation of news sources. Watch news shows and go online to look at various news sources, and you’ll find that everyone is reporting the same information from the same few sources. “The AP reports…” or “The Times reports…”
What happened to news stations doing independent investigations? It appears that research and investigation now often involve sitting at one’s computer and reviewing what the very few remaining large news operations are reporting. There are still a few organizations doing very good ground-pounding, door knocking, hard reporting – We’re not complete media cynics – just mostly.
This lack of money being put into reporting also appears to have led to much more in house busyness to make it appear we’re getting all these different sources, and more and more stories are being given a higher elevation and are being labeled as breaking news in an attempt add excitement, immediacy, and drama. The cable news network’s overuse of the term breaking news misses the mark more than an umpire with glasses misses a strike. It has become comic. Here is kind of how the hard-hitting news is featured on an aired news show:
Anchor1 (Who is a dashing-looking man, who appears as though he may have spent too much time with their hair in makeup): “Now this breaking news!” He states with the vocal tone as though the next words out of his mouth may be reporting the death of your dearest aunt Mable. “The Times reports that there are more kernels of corn on this year’s crop of corn cobs, and researchers and industry have begun the debate on what is happening. For more on this breaking news, let’s go to Kendra. Kendra is standing five feet from the anchor, in front of a large screen that is showing a video of a man driving a tractor down the middle of a cornfield.
Kendra: (Ah yes. Cute, blonde, double-dimpled, little sister done well, big smile Kendra. It appears as though Kendra too has been in more than a couple of hair care commercials.) “Well Steve (Steve is Anchor1), we are just learning of the details of this breaking story and it appears this discovery was ACTUALLY MADE (Kendra is putting an over the top emphasis on “actually made.”) in the CORN FIELD itself, by a CORN farmer. This CORN FARMER, who was literally out walking in the corn fields when he noticed that the CORN COBS themselves appeared to be a bit longer this year than in previous years. For more in-depth coverage, let’s go to Mike, who was ACTUALLY able to TALK to the farmer IN PERSON. (Emphasis on “actually” and “talk to” and “in person”, and she’s a bit too excited about all of this as though Mike has nabbed an interview with an elf who was seeing Mrs. Santa on the sly.
In fact, viewers may find themselves moving to the edge of their seats to find out exactly what Kendra is about to tell us – even though Kendra is inside, some secretly hope a light gust of wind will blow a bit of her finely tailored hair across her pretty, dimpled face. And then Kendra will have to blow the hair off her face, showing that cute little pout that she makes when she is telling us about a human interest story or a puppy being saved from euthanasia. “Mike, what did you find out in your hard hitting deep dive reporting, exclusive here on K-diddle-diddle-Y news!”
The camera moves to Mike, who is standing in front of another screen, about five feet from Kendra’s screen, displaying a close-up video of a man talking, wearing a seed corn hat and in need of a shave. The video of the farmer is being projected to the other side of the anchor’s desk, so it looks like Mike is talking to him.
Mike (whom we don’t know what is going on with his hair; we’re not sure he even washes or combs it): “Yes, Kendra, I was able to get the corn farmer on the phone tonight. It was exciting to bring this to our viewers. He had stopped picking the corn in the field to get a bite to eat, and we were able to get him on the phone. The farmer said that he noticed the corn cobs are a bit longer this year. Let’s give a listen…”
The screen is now filled with a still of the farmer.
We hear the farmer’s poorly edited voice clip: “I noticed the corn cobs were a bit longer this year…”
The camera has now turned back on Mike.
Mike: “There you have it Kendra. An exciting story and the big question now? WHAT is going on (emphasis on “what”)? Back to you, Kendra.”
We now have a close-up of Kendra: “Wow. Thanks, Mike. To ensure we covered this from all angles, I contacted a local seed corn company, and they mentioned that there may be a discrepancy in HOW the kernels are being counted. We also attempted to contact another seed corn company, but they did not respond to our request, so we may need to delve even deeper into this story. Some wild stuff is going on in our local cornfields, Steve.
There is a slight pause after the last sentence as Kendra realizes how silly what she just read sounded. Back to you Steve.”
Anchor 1: Steve pauses briefly posing a slight head cock to the right as though he is allowing the viewer to take in what they have just seen and heard.
“We will keep on top of this story for our viewers…” When we return, we will show you how a local food company is changing the labels that you may have become familiar with.”
This is a piece that is a mere commercial for the local food company, but they have a live video in this story. Wahoo! “Now let’s take a break.”
The term “break” is code for a commercial to sell stuff because after being on the air for three to five minutes we all know they could probably suck up for another two or three minutes, although that corn cob story was pretty exhausting. Maybe they really do need a break. To touch up their make-up and hair.
Watch a local news report one night, and you will see on most occasions the top stories of the day will get two to five minutes of coverage, no matter if there are two or twelve top stories’, they will still be allotted two to five minutes.
After the two-minute run-through of what can be argued as real news, the template is pretty much set. First, we are teased with little snippets of what is to come and why we need to stay tuned. And sometimes they dare to do these little news commercials – Yeah during the news they do commercials for news that will be coming up later – and then tell us to tune in at ten o’clock. Ten o’clock! That’s five hours from now, some of the viewers protest. “I want to know about what is happening to the disappearing, Painted Shetland Ponies NOW!” After staying up until ten o’clock for the story, many are disappointed that almost as much time was spent telling us about what was coming up as they did telling us the story. But just so you know, the Painted Shetland Ponies were not really disappearing; they were just being moved to another farm in another state because the farm they were on was being sold, and a new car dealership would be built.
The dealership just happens to be one of the sponsors of the ten o’clock news cast.
