"Is TV News a Window on the World?"

Introduction
Many people argue whether the media of TV news is like a clear window on the world. As I discovered the answer is no. This is based on many factors and details. Including how the TV news select a story worth reporting or how they show this story and give us the information of this story through the TV news reader through this blog post I will show you how it isn't a window of the world.

TV News Certainly Tries To Present Itself In This Way
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As the news readers and the opening sequence of the BBC News at 10 use these ways to present itself is also due to the laws put into place by the government to keep it from being impartial or bias. Organisations and regulations such as Ofcom and the BBC Code Of Practice prevent this from happening. Ofcom is the organisation that operates under the Communications Act 2003 which allows them to cut any harmful material to protect any viewers who might be harmed by listening or watching e.g. racism, violence or any other content that could harm viewers. The BBC code of practice is the meeting of certain principles that independent production companies should be supported and allow to produce their own productions to make the industry a competitive to avoid bias from big conglomerate companies.


However TV News Can't, Simply "Show" Reality
There is reasons why TV news cant show the reality in there storys. One reason is because of how the news gather these events through their sources. E.g. if a news company was to get in touch with the police about information on a crime the news company wouldn't be able to get actuality footage of the crime so this then leads to the company exaggerating the story to get peoples attention.
Another reason why TV news cant show reality is because of the reasons why TV news chooses its storys they show to the public. These selections of values were spotted by famous sociologists Galtung and Ruge and how TV news need one of these values in an event for them to report it to us. One of these values is meaningfulness which is the story impacts the audience themselves. E.g. if electricity bills were to get higher TV news would choose this story as mostly working class people would watch this. However this isn't showing reality as maybe the rich are more well off than working class making the story a little impartial because the news isn't capturing all points of views. Another value  that TV news uses is the unexpectedness. For example flooding in Thailand happens almost regularly killing many people. TV news don't use these storys because this is rather common knowledge in the world. However the 9/11

attacks on the twin towers became a world wide event over a short period of time because an attack in America never happens. Furthermore the fact that America was attacked influenced TV news to choose this story because it happened in their country. America to the world is seen as an elite nation and when these events takes place it is considered more news worthy to get field reporters to these elite nations. Another example of this would be how Russia took control of Crimea as Russia is also considered an elite nation TV news saw this to be a fitting event for them to show.

Laws also prevent TV news from showing the reality. If the government considers a story being shown to the public could cause them harm or induce a panic TV news must cut the story. This shows that TV news isn't showing reality as these laws are put in place. Other laws include not showing children's faces in the news or any racism. Ofcom is the organisation that monitors most of these laws as they enforce these laws with parliament.
Cost is another major factor towards TV news being bias and impartial. When events happen in other countrys it can be expensive to get the field reporters out to these locations. When TV news does this they take a risk on big storys. For example the protests in Tiananmen Square 1989

was a huge event for TV news. When the protests were in the early stages the BBC took a risk and sent out there field reporters to China, Beijing. However ITV didn't felt that nothing was going to happen so they didn't think it was news worthy. Furthermore as the protest became more prominent the BBC got lots of footage and ITV only had a phone call with someone there at the location. This shows that TV news can be very impartial as ITV only included the event when it showed some of their values.
The competition between TV news also doesn't show reality because it can exclude other significant events that are insignificant to the eyes of TV news. This results in these storys never being shown to anyone. For example if a field reporter was filming an event nearby a group of other reporters huddled together usually the reporter would run over to the other event as to not risk any other TV news company getting better storys than there own.
Late breaking storys also cause TV news to abandon there obligation to show a true window of the world, when these late breaking storys happen. Other storys are put on hold and are sometimes even given less time to give details on the event as TV news are constantly trying to get more viewers and strive to get the more newsworthy storys in there view to attract more viewers. For example in this clip a story was interrupted to bring on another story implying to us that the new event was used because the news station considered it more important.


Technical issues can also become a factor in the news impartiality. When a live camera is functioning if the news station can't establish the link to the studio sometimes the event is cut and another event is shown to the public. Usually the same event is shown later on the TV news channel however this can show how un neutral TV news can be because this shows us that they control when different storys are shown. When these technical issues happen it is often improvised on what story should come next and this decision is often made by which is the more important in the eyes of the editor. This is clearly shown through the programme "The making of London tonight". It showed when once a camera's lost the link to the studio while the programme was beginning to go live. As the programme progressed and a counter story was put in place however when the link was re established the original story was aired instead of the other. Through this programme again it is shown how TV news is mostly very bias and not reality.
Also when these events are used by TV news they are then turned into storys for the audience to become more interested in them. When they are turned some of the details are deliberately used for exaggeration of what the event is about through continuity editing. For example in this BBC report on the Russian invasion on Ukraine there are many shots of the vehicles and planes mobilising to exaggerate the situation and make it seem more dire.
Actuality footage is also something that causes TV news to be unbalanced. As actuality footage of events can sometimes be hard to come by when TV news has some footage this footage is usually archived for other similar storys so it can be used to draw the attention of the spectators. However this isn't balanced because when this footage is shown it isn't of the actual event that is being shown to the public. This makes TV news quite impartial as they aren't showing a true window of what happened because they lack the actual footage of individual events.
Conclusion
I don't really think that TV news not being able to show reality really matters anymore because with the coming of new platforms and individual news companies many people have been drawn to these rather than TV news. With the Internet it is very easy to access the news meaning TV news can't manipulate the continuity editing to make it into a story. With online articles this is restricted as no video camera is used to create the media text. In my opinion the image of TV news in the eyes of the audience could be greatly improved if some of there values changed and the people who take charge of the large news corporations. Instead of the usual white,middle class, male and middle age leads on the production we could stray from this stereotype that the audience has become so accustomed to. Also i think many people would agree with me through the evidence of the TV programme "gogglebox". This programme includes a variety of people commenting on TV shows and even news storys. Some comments are made through how that TV news isn't always clear sometimes which is correct through this blogg.