TV News starting sequences always try to suggest that we are watching a raw, unmediated and impartial view on the world. They do this by using various different techniques that connote different things, for example:
In TV news starting sequences we often see transparent objects and eyes. These both connote neutrality. This means that nothing has been changed and nothing is hidden from the viewer. This also means that the news has not been edited what so ever, so what ever the news reporters see, the viewers also see. The transparent letters are like this 'window on the world'.
Some news starting sequences are from or have been from space. This connotes that the news is going to cover stories world wide from around the globe.
In the TV News industry, even the law requires that the news must be impartial. Here is some of the legislation to show this:
OFCOM regulations state that "News, in whatever form, must be reported with due accuracy and presented with due impartiality." TV News is always supposed to present with accuracy and impartiality but that is not always the case, here is why.
When we look into this case with more detail, we realize that this is not quite true.
There was once two men by the names of Galtung and Ruge. In 1973 they worked out 12 of the most significant news values, some of these values show that the news does not show impartiality, for example:
Frequency - this means that events like robberies and murders are usually used and preferred over larger, long term events like famine or poverty. This straight away goes to show that the news could be hiding the bigger problems that are happening in the world, and instead are just showing the same things over and over, stories that people have seen before so many times.
Un-ambiguity - meaning that news stories and events don't have to be simple but have to be accessible to the public which means that the media has to simplify the story in some way to which people can understand what is happening. This can be bad as this gives the media the chance to take out important parts of the story that the public will never know about, thus not showing impartiality or accuracy.
Reference to elite nations - The news covers a wide range of stories from all over the world, and mostly from more developed and 'important' countries in the world. You do get news stories about what is happening in the regions such as Africa, but not very often. This shows that a lot of stories about famine, and/or poverty in areas such as Africa are not made aware to the public and can be kept hidden.Another reason I do not believe the news is being impartial is because of how they select their news stories, and what process they go through to get them. The 'gate-keeping' system was the term Galtung and Ruge used to refer to decisions by news producers made to select or discard certain or potential news stories. This is how the 'gate-keeping' process works. Stories have to go through a certain process before they appear on TV, but not every story will. A lot of stories may get queued up to go onto TV but are then last minute thrown away into what we call 'The Dustbin of History'. This shows us that not all of the stories are shown on TV and that because they are just discarded, we won't every hear of that story or even ever known it had existed in the first place. This in itself shows how the News is hiding things from the general public and are not always showing us everything as they should be. Economics is something that is very important when it comes to the gatekeeping process, some stories will get cut from TV depending on what financial time of year it is. If a certain News company have no money left to cover a specific story they may end up having this story become extremely short and not cover it in enough detail like another company with enough money would. For example: When the Tianmen Square Massacre occurred, ITV had spent the majority of their money on getting crews out there and in the end did not have enough money to cover the story and just had to cover it with a phone call, whilst the BBC had footage and reporters reporting out there. So the audience for the ITV news did not get to see what really happened, and just had to reply on voices. Competition is another big thing in the TV News industry, all of the News companies are always competing to get to a certain story first so they are the first ones to cover it and to get it on TV. But there is one problem, once one company finds a big story, other companies will then try to get there too, and so any companies that are left will also try to cover the story first and so eventually every company on TV will be covering the same story and no one will be watching anything new, instead all seeing the same old story.
During the news sometimes there can be technical issues, and so the news reporters or news presenters are told to keep talking until the problem is fixed. As the news is live this can be difficult to do because eventually they have ran out of things to say and will start to lose it and talk about random, unrelated things.
Most of the stories that you see on TV are usually shaped and changed from what they originally were. The news seem to be shaping the "reality" that we see on the world. And so we will never really know what is happening in the world to its full extent. This further backs up my point that the media and news are always changing what we see and will always continue to do so.
So in conclusion, I believe that TV news is a "window on the world" because a lot of things can be shut off from the public and we are not seeing what we really should be seeing. The news is always constructing what we see and even though the law states that they must show an unmediated view on the world and has to be reported with due accuracy and shown with due impartiality.
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