Introduction to the News

I watched BBC News At 6 on 29th June 2017. The first stories goes as followed; Grenfell fire and the judge; Irish women can come to England and don't have to pay for abortions; Cardinal George Pell accused of sexual offences; RAF strikes on Islamic States; 21st Century Fox taking over Sky; Hillsborough disaster - Tony Brands death; farmer creates an art gallery on his farm. In the starting sequence, the audio is rather fast pasted, the way the presenter talks makes it so to quickly brief up the story while leaving details out for later in the program.
The presenter was George Alagiah, aged 61. The role Alagiah provides is to tell the nation of the latest updates in various stories that are selected for that news reading. The skills needed are clear communication skills so they get the correct meaning across to the audience. Confidence as well as this will help the presenter voice their story clearer.


News Ordering is the term used to describe the stories shown. The first story is the important, relevant breaking news, the topic that affects the most people; this is usually something devastating like a terrorist attack or in this case, the fire of Grenfell which is dubbed "The worst fire in modern Britain". After the first report, the stories lower in relevance to the audience ending with the last story - the Kicker - which is used to make the audience feel a little better. Slow news day is when there aren't many stories on a large scale, so they use small stories with not much detail as a filler. Each story has a news value and these values are used to rank the relevance of each news story.
Immediacy - How recent the story has happened.
Familiarity - The distance between big areas of Britain or Britain as a whole.
Amplitude - The size of the event that impacted people
Frequency - How often the event happens.
Unambiguity - How clear the event is.
Predictability - How predictable the event is
Surprise - How much shock the even caused to people
Continuity - How many times the event has been reported
Elite Nation/People - How big a country is/how famous a person is.
Personalisation - How an event can change a view or belief
Negativity - How good or bad the event is.
Balance - Making an equal amount of good or bad in a broadcast or ending with a happier story.


Discuss bias through selection and omission
Editors can be biased in choosing the stories that they want to be broadcast. They can also breeze through a story or can completely cut out details to imply a different meaning to the story.
Discuss bias through placement / order
The order in which a news artical is placed can determine on whether that artical is read.
Discuss bias through headlines
A headline can make or break an artical. Various headlines can be used to centre the report to a different aspect of what is actually happening, it can also be used to grab the audience's attention.
Discuss bias through shot selection and camera angles
Certain images and video clips can be used to make an event see better or worse than what it actually is.
Discuss bias through names and captions
People can get trapped in a bad turn out and sometimes the news can make it worse by labelling various people and certain things.
Discuss bias through use of language
Language use can imply meanings, for the better or for the worse; often making the viewer have negative thoughts about the topic.