News, you may say, reflects reality.
But let's take a closer look.
It becomes clear that news does not reflect reality. Instead news is a construction by journalists.
No doubt news coverage is triggered by actual circumstances. Like a flood, or a plane disappearance or a church being set ablaze.
But the coverage of these occurrences is influenced by process and constraints in the same way as fiction is.
News is a creation resulting from the active selecting and interweaving of images into a 'processed' reality.
No doubt, in constructing stories, all of us journalists rely on the facts of the event being covered. But let us admit it: we are also strongly influenced by elements outside the event - such as deadline, space limitations, and our own 'news sense'
The construction process basically encompasses three tasks
[a] selecting what gets covered
[b] deciding what will become the focus of the story
[c] determining how the story gets told.
Think of all you did last week. No doubt your week must have been filed with all sorts of things that interested and excited you. How many of these events were covered as news? Probably none. Why?
Journalists don't think of you as a newsworthy person.
But journalists will readily write about the suit that Narendra Modi wore, or the dinner that Arvind Kejriwal had on the night of his electoral win.
Remember, the journalist decides how the news should be presented
So, news is not something that happens, News is what gets presented.
We almost never see news events as they happen.
Instead we are shown the media's manufactured version of events.
But let's take a closer look.
It becomes clear that news does not reflect reality. Instead news is a construction by journalists.
No doubt news coverage is triggered by actual circumstances. Like a flood, or a plane disappearance or a church being set ablaze.
But the coverage of these occurrences is influenced by process and constraints in the same way as fiction is.
News is a creation resulting from the active selecting and interweaving of images into a 'processed' reality.
No doubt, in constructing stories, all of us journalists rely on the facts of the event being covered. But let us admit it: we are also strongly influenced by elements outside the event - such as deadline, space limitations, and our own 'news sense'
The construction process basically encompasses three tasks
[a] selecting what gets covered
[b] deciding what will become the focus of the story
[c] determining how the story gets told.
Think of all you did last week. No doubt your week must have been filed with all sorts of things that interested and excited you. How many of these events were covered as news? Probably none. Why?
Journalists don't think of you as a newsworthy person.
But journalists will readily write about the suit that Narendra Modi wore, or the dinner that Arvind Kejriwal had on the night of his electoral win.
Remember, the journalist decides how the news should be presented
So, news is not something that happens, News is what gets presented.
We almost never see news events as they happen.
Instead we are shown the media's manufactured version of events.
News is 'manufactured' as you say. So what influences the construction process?
ReplyDelete