News reporting in general but television news in particular, what do you think about it?

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I don't often watch the news or listen to it (I read newspapers online every now and again) but last night I saw the first bit of the 10 O'Clock news and I was perturbed at the way the shooting of the 11 yo boy was covered.

Partly because the parents were dragged on to talk about it - Whyever would we want to see this? Why would they want to give an interview? Why would anyone even ask them? - not only that but the report was cliche ridden and just generally prurient.

It made me realise why I don't watch much tv and certainly why I don't watch the news.

What do you all think? Has it got worse in the last few years? Is it just me?

(This ISN'T about the tragedy of the actual story btw, it is tragic, this is about news reporting)

I would imagine the feeling was to get them to talk about it and show how the crime has affected the family would encourage someone who knew something to go forward to the police.

Hmm, I'm not convinced. That might haver been the arguement the researcher used to get them on though, I agree.

We don't know that the parents were dragged on. They may have insisted on doing it in an attempt to make people see what this had done to them.

TBH I was more concerned about the fact that they were interviewing young children asking their opinions.
I started a thread yesterday though saying how I thought the EBC sometimes got thier priorities wrong, becasue they were in the middle of the headline news and were talking to one of their reporters in Liverpool and suddenly stopped it to go and listen to Tim Henmans press conference in new York. I said that I felt that the killing of child in such circumstances was surely more important than a sports star who had never won a major tournament in his life.
However not many people agreed with me.

I think in this era of 24 hour news and celebrity obssesion they do soemtimes get it wrong.

The young children being interviewed about how lovely their dead friend was was awful too, I agree.

Puddle, no, we don't know they were dragged on, they may have done it willingly but my point is that we shouldn't want to see it really. It's prurient.

I thought the parents were very brave & eloquent with what they said (considering their loss) - I think they wanted to make sure that everyone understood their loss in the hope that it would make any one who had information about the killer come forward. What shocked me was the clip I saw about how groups are making videos for the internet about guns & violence. The news last night showed 2 & named the 'gangs' - great publicity if your main aim is to tell the world how 'violent' you are. The reported couldh ave easily said these things existed without giving them air time on national TV

I don't think many people WOULD want to see the parents www - I found it unbearable to watch last night. But it's part of the 'story' isn't it, the effect on the family and their grief was so raw - I thought it was very powerful.

Totally agree about the interviews with the schoolfriends though - and the elderly neighbour actually.

Whizz there was a story on the front of the Daily Ranger yesterday about three lads who had killed a man and had posted theirselves on Youtube bragging about it.

I suppose that's partly my point though, it shouldn't be part of 'the story' - the facts are horrific enough, we don't need to see where it happened/hear from all the grief stricken relatives and friends/hear news reporters talk about how they have nothing really to say on the subject but so what, they're looking at the spot where it happened

I think thats the key - its the brag-factor of having a gun / knife / terrorising people or worse that the 'kids' seem to thrive off. Being able to post so much on the internet seems to fuel it ??

what also annoyed me was the 'hundreds of police' they have brought in to do a search of the are for evidence. Couldn't these police have been asked to try & crack down on the violence that seemed to be common knowledge in the area ????
It was the same with the guy in Warrington - the local police had received numerous complaints about youths causing trouble, yet it takes a killing unfortunately for people to actually sit up & say they are going to do somehting about it

I don't like it. I recall when the prostitutes were being murdered (was it last year?) and there was a suspect, there was this seriously hyped up report, standing right next to the yellow tape.

They were filming the guys house and giving a voice-over; "That's a the suspected killers kitchen, and you can see the kitchen roll on the windowsill. I wonder what secrets it holds..etc." That was the BBC. It was gross.

I really think the mainstream news culture of 24 hour channels is detrimental. Yes, News can happen at any hour of the day or night, but sometimes, there really isn't anything happening, and there's airtime to fill.

Realistically, television can't really cope with the news gathering capabilities of the internet. They've chosen to compete by being sensationalist mostly, and it can be grim viewing.

I agree totally. News reporting these days, especially wrt disasters and violent crimes, is increasingly gratuitous and crass.

I also agree that hauling the devastated parents in front of a camera is just a cynical and distasteful effort to wring every last drop out of the "story".

I'm not having a go at people who feel sad at stories like this - I do too, who wouldn't? - but when the actual reportage is designed to stimulate recreational emoting, in order to sell papers/promote viewing figures - that's revolting, frankly.

"News can happen at any hour of the day or night, but sometimes, there really isn't anything happening, and there's airtime to fiYll. "

That was what I was trying to say in the thread about the BBC yesterday - there wasn't anything happening in the story - there was a live "sports" story which they switched too.

I hate it - all of it. It's as though Chris Morris (the media satirist) had never exsisted. Sensationalist, speculative rubbish. Bring back a Reithian doctrine to the news!

this is exactly why we should want to see it so we can see the effects of such a tragedy.
in the oast a murder was huge news and over here in ireland people talked about places like washington and chicago with a sense of absolute astonishment that they had on average one murder a day.
now there is a body found every other day in ireland and the tragedy is that it has become so common that no one really cares. no one cares if they hear another operson has been gunned down beyond a fletting "dear jesus that's awful" but then get on with it and rarely give it a second thought. we need brave parents and relatives like this to remind us that this is a tragedy and something has gone seriously wrong in our country.
victims like that 11 year old boy or the innocent plumber who was gunned down in dublin months ago fade into oblivion because there is a new news story and a new murder every few days, on top of that we hear of other countries with death tolls of thousands over the space of a few months which numb us to the deaths.
if someone is to take a stand and do something to see the killers brought to justice emotional pleas like these are needed to over-ride the fear people have of retribution from the killers.

You can never know the effects of tragedy unless you have suffered one. All the overly emotive coverage actually detracts from the real emotion of events. If someone doesn?t act in the way we expect we automatically start to suspect them. Yet no one knows how they would react, and people act DIFFERENTLY.

The main consequence we see of this is with rape ? people are so used to seeing actors over emote the pain and confusion of victims, we (and we make up the juries!) think there is something up when a woman doesn?t collapse into paroxysms of shame.

The whole media effect changes the way people think they should act grief and pain for fear they will be not be believed or labelled unfeeling. It?s a simulacrum ? the replacement of real emotion for sentiment.

Agree MT, I'm reading this, atm

totally disagree W&B

I agree with you www - the 'story' is never just reported these days - even on Radio4 it's 'PM - an hour of news AND COMMENT'. Surely the comment is where bias comes in, and un-necessary interviews/sensationalism comes in.

Take this morning - I half read an article 'REVEALED - what happened the night of Madeleine McCann's disappearance' - no news in the article - it told the reader that between 9.05 and 9.15 she was taken. End of story. But the sensationalism that surrounds the case means it sells news. And tv news is just as bad.

The reason TV reports feature journalists standing at the spot where something happened is that TV is a visual medium. They need pictures to tell the story.

FWIW as a journalist I've spoken to people who have been bereaved (thank God have never been a crime reporter, though, not really my thing) and often they want to tell their story. I felt the same when my beloved Godmother died, I desperately wanted to tell everyone about her and how fab she was. If there had been a camera around I would have grabbed it, frankly.

Of course there is Chris Morris The Day Today style over-exploitation of emotion. But it's hard not to be emotional about an 11yr old boy being gunned down on his way back from football practice.

The BBC could make a stand and stop vying for ratings, but it has the same format as all the others. The news isn't news, it's entertainment. The terrible tragedy of the McGanns no more than a murder mystery.

The police have a maxim that the families, friends and acquaintances of victims are always under suspicion, the media know this. THAT is what they are hoping will happen with this rule of getting them on for a press conference. They are all secretly hoping for another Huntley scoop.

Will read your link as soon as I have a mo WWW - just bashing out resonses inbetween games

The fact that they want to tell their story is how they are so easily exploited. Please don?t invoke the specious the noble media lie. Media has its benefits, but the news should be the news, ie facts, not speculation ? and not some egotist news anchor on radio or TV planting seeds of fear and discontent in the populace.

TV is audio/visual media - news formats we see now are the snake eating its own tail - they are completely up their own arses!

"it's hard not to be emotional"

What ever happened to objective journalism. Dawkin's Edge of Reason should look there next time. Emotional, reactionary journalists..that's all the world needs

The thing I really detest is when something terrible happens and they spend all day 'reporting' on it but really have nothing to tell.

News reader: Something terrible has happened. Let's go to our reporter who is at the scene. Reporter, what can you tell us?

Reporter: Here I am at the scene of this terrible thing that has happened.

News reader: What can you tell us?

Reporter: Something terrible has happened. If you look behind me you will see the aftermath of the terrible thing.

News reader: Thanks for that. And now, here in the studio we have Mr X, who is an expert on this kind of terrible thing, and Mrs Y who once knew someone who was involved in a similar terrible thing. What can you tell us about this terrible thing?