And they have the nerve to attack things like the Facebook tribute group, when it's the Murdoch media who have been building him up as some kind of anti-hero continuously for the last 10 days. Of course though they'll never admit they played right into Moats hands.
Did I not see ITV leading with it on their lunch time news?
And they have the nerve to attack things like the Facebook tribute group, when it's the Murdoch media who have been building him up as some kind of anti-hero continuously for the last 10 days. Of course though they'll never admit they played right into Moats hands.
Did I not see ITV leading with it on their lunch time news?
How are we supposed to know what you watched at lunchtime?
Audiences are funny things. Without one, a thing of beauty like Romeo and Juliet is just two people talking to each other. Without an audience, TV is just people wasting money burning a lot of electricity, filming, transmitting, encoding.... why bother? Without an audience, radio doesn't exist, period. The audience is what makes radio, and, if Global/Bauer/GMG etc. are to be believed, listener figures are now the be-all and end-all of modern radio broadcasting. Media needs an audience.
It needs people with no agenda and people of individualism. It needs the young, the old, the smart, the stupid...oh and Brekkie too. It needs to provoke a reaction and respond to the reaction. It's a two-way street.
News reporting has been going on since the dawn of time. Gone are the days of rapt attention from the townsfolk when the local town cryer reads out a proclomation that taxes on sheep ownership will rise to three groats a month. Gone are the days of people fighting to buy newspapers off street corners when major disasters occur. Gone even are the days of newsflashes and "We interrupt this programme...."
Audiences are now harder than ever to get. We are saturated. We don't just have 10 daily newspapers to choose from now, we have millions of news websites. We get our news emailed to us in our pocket. We can choose which news to receive, which stories we're interested in. We can choose WHO tells us that news. Just like we choose which play to see, which movie to rent, which telly channel to watch.
News has gone from being an essential part of daily life to just another commodity. Society is restless and rushing. We don't have time to sit down at 6pm and 10pm for half an hour just to tell us there are ferries sinking in the Phillipines*. Why do that when we can watch another episode of CSI: Miami or QI? Why bore ourselves when we can entertain ourselves?
But deep down, we still need authority and integrity in the news. Why else do we have newspapers and television of record? When people in 100 years time judge the events of now, where will they turn? The Daily Star? No, they will read the Times and the Telegraph and listen to BBC Radio 4. Somewhere, inamongst this ******* material-based laissez-faire society we have now, is the desire to be told the truth. Which is why, in the end, we always fall back to these sources.
Sky News' performance in the Raoul Moat affair is questionable to say the least. A sensationalist attitude that grates against this inbuilt desire for straight news reportage. Sky's correspondents have shown themselves to be far from authoritative and lacking in integrity. They've shown themselves to be ignorant of the facts and dissatisfied with answers which go against their preconceptions. One example: they focussed heavily on the effects of Taser guns, postulating that when the police fired, it caused Moat to accidentally shoot himself. Forget the fact that Tasers make you lose all motor control and that the so-called "involuntary jerk" theory is based on the scientific value of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, they clearly wanted to push the line that Moat's death was an accident and that he never wanted to kill himself. Is this what their audience wanted? Do people who watch Sky News root for the mass murderer and blame the police? Possibly, but even if they don't, I expect quite a few of the 30,000 people (and I reluctantly call them people) who joined that Facebook group were influenced by that attitude.
Now I don't think for a moment that Sky were rooting for the mass murderer, but underneath it all, they were hoping this would go on as long as possible. Big news stories means bigger rates for advertising, which means more money. BBC don't have this problem. They can provide whatever news coverage they deem fit so long as it falls within the budget of the Licence Fee. Sky however need to chase the bucks, and in the process of doing so, they must chase a media-saturated audience who probably got a Twitter update about Moat's death several minutes before Kay Burley orgasmed it out on air. They must chase an audience which would rather watch fake crime on FiveUSA, Hallmark and Living than real-life drama here in this country. They must chase an audience whose priorities now run around on-demand TV viewing, around 24-7 news online, around the various nuances of modern media. For their audience, must the talented journalists and commentators at Sky News sell their soul?
A great post, Michael. It exemplifies the standard of comment and discussion that we should be having on this site - not trite posts that offer little or no balance and judgements.
Michael made a lot of sense, his point "News has gone from being an essential part of daily life to just another commodity." is correct.
Once TV News was at appointed times, and for a short period of time. Now with rolling news channels "news" has become like water and electricity. Use it when you want, and then (and this is the important point) turn it off when YOU have had enough.
This particular story was certainly a lead item (look at the column inches in every newspaper and the time spent by foreign media), and it was 'breaking news', however..... when nothing's happening,
and
'the other network(s) is/are there',
what do editors do?
With viewers dipping into the channel for the latest on 'the lead story' and the editor has decided that as nothing's happening so they have gone away for the weather forecast, or sports results... which news channel will people stay with?
I don't think you can paint all journalists for any particular network with the same brush, but the network for which they work would set their 'tone' and style of coverage.
Sometimes one particular network can have more luck than another.
A Sat Truck within five minutes' drive- doing a different story- whereas the competition (for that's what they are) is miles away, stuck in traffic.