To View or Not To View :: Media News Television Essays

To View or Not To View Staying in touch with the outside world, via the 1000 evening news, has become increasingly gruelling for me the last couple years. Not only am I unremarkably not awake at 1000, but if I am, I do not want to spend my time hearing around the many murders, rapes, and robberies that plaque our city. Television news has not only interpreted on a tabloid-like feel, but the substance of most of the news stories is a total waste of my viewing time. However, in an effort to stay connected, I currently listen to the morning TV news as well up as read the Chicago Tribune on a daily basis. The topical anaesthetic news broadcast I taped to critique for this paper was the 500 News on Channel 5 which was shown on Monday, April 7, co-anchored by Joan Esposito, a 30ish white female, and Warren Saunders, a late 50s black male. I viewed a total of 13 stories which were comprised mainly of murder, weather and informational topics. The Top Story was more or less a 7 year ol d girl who was murdered by a gang member while she was waiting in word of mouth to get ice cream. The horizontal surfaces time went for approximately 4 minutes and include 3 interviews of people, 3 different on-screen captions and a camera span of case bears on a fence. The actual meaty parts of this story, that is, the facts, were fully abandoned in this broadcast. However, interviews with crying persons of the gang members families, and the little girls school superintendent observation out loud on what this little girl could have become, was a total waste of time. Conversely, s backning the teddy bears was touching, but lent energy to the telling of the tragic event that took this girls life. I suppose the powers that be at the news station do not feel the public can feel on their own, thus we atomic number 18 constantly being abandoned visual reminders of how sad a story is. I can safely say that the Top Story of the majority of broadcasts that I view are murders. Based on that premise, the senseless murder of this child was an important story in Chicago that day. I do take exception, however, to the many visuals employ to evoke emotion as the sadness of the story spoke for itself. obscure from this story, the only remaining news stories consisted of a murder of a ward-heeler driver and two stories of missing persons.