Hello.
In previous videos, you looked at sensationalism.
In this video, we're going to look at the 24 hour news cycle.
We'll look at how it began and
at two ways that it has changed the ways news is reported.
Giving opinions and manipulating the audience.
Trying to shape the way they think about something.
What does the 24 hour news cycle mean?
Well, it means the cable TV news channels, that broadcast 24 hours a day.
They never stop, or take a break.
Examples are CNN, Fox News,
MSNBC, or Al Jazeera.
Now we didn't always have the 24 hour news cycle.
When TV news began back in the 1950s
there was just one 30 minute news program on in the evening.
The Evening News only had time to talk about the most important news.
And it concentrated on facts rather than opinions.
Then in the 1980s CNN began broadcasting 24 hours every day.
Now the journalists needed to fill up 24 hours of news, so
they also reported on trivial, meaning less important news items.
In the 1990s, more 24 hour news channels began broadcasting.
This created competition for ratings,
because the success of a channel is based on the number of viewers.
So how does this change the way that news is reported?
Well, apart from less truth and
accuracy as we saw in a previous video, there are two main ways
that the 24-hour news cycle has changed the way news is reported.
One, an increase in giving opinions.
And two, the manipulation of the audience.
Let's look at the increase in giving opinions.
As we mentioned earlier,
the change to 24 hour news resulted in a lot more time to fill.
Because there are not enough facts to fill this time,
24 hour news channels often ask experts to give their opinions.
The opinions of these experts are usually the same as those of the audience.
The opinions are often biased, because this is what the audience wants to hear.
Compare this to the principle of objectivity that we looked at in unit one.
This says that a journalist must report the facts
without favoring one side or another.
Now let's look at the way the 24-hour news channels try to manipulate the audience.
In journalism, manipulating means focusing on certain types of stories
in order to make people believe something that may not be true.
For example, you saw earlier that sensational news gets higher ratings.
News involving violent crime Is often sensational.
And so,
24 hour news channels spend a lot of time reporting on these types of stories.
A viewer might see many of these stories, and
think that violent crime is increasing.
In reality,
there is much less violent crime today in the US than there was 20 years ago.
But there is much more news about it because of the 24 hour news cycle.
Compare this type of manipulation to the principle of fairness.
Which says that the job of a journalist is to tell the facts,
to inform the public, not to manipulate them.
So, in this video, we looked at the origins of the 24 hour news cycle.
And how this leads to an increase in giving opinions and
manipulating the audience.
Next, you'll learn about how to read out a news script using
the correct stress and intonation.