Tod Shacklett
LIBR 200
Dr. Burns
7 October 1999
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TV News: High Technology, Low Expectations
In years past, television news consisted largely of an announcer, sitting at a desk, reading news items from a printed page. Today, the job of the news anchor has become more like that of an air traffic controller, launching prerecorded video stories and introducing reporters, live in the field, who introduce prerecorded video stories of their own. But why do they call them stories? Are they not just recordings, on videotape, of the news events as they actually happened? Television is the primary source of news for most of us (Whetmore, 1993, p. 56).(1) Additionally, the very act of watching television, over time, effects the perception of the viewer. Just as reading a newspaper requires literacy, the ability to evaluate television news effectively requires a basic understanding of the visual language that is used to tell news stories: the visual language of film narrative. TV news stories are not reality, but instead are subjective exercises in filmmaking primarily because the viewer has been conditioned to neither expect nor require anything more.
Television is a visual medium, and at the time it came into being, there was already an existing tradition of visual storytelling, or film narrative, that had been developed by the movie industry.(2) One of the key purposes of film narrative is to create the illusion of reality where no reality exists. A common technique used to achieve this illusion is called crosscutting, and it involves creating an implied reality by cutting back and forth between two or more different images (Mast, 1981, p. 49). To illustrate, imagine this typical sequence from an action-packed early western. The viewer sees a shot of a lovely young girl tied to the railroad tracks. Then the viewer sees a shot of a speeding train, then a shot of the handsome hero on horseback, riding at full gallop. The implied reality is that the brave hero is rushing to rescue the helpless heroine from the railroad tracks before the relentless train causes her hideous demise. The viewer assumes that the three, separate events depicted in the three different shots are occurring simultaneously, but in reality they were probably filmed at different times and, quite possibly, in wildly disparate locations. But when and where the images were filmed is irrelevant, because the only measure of reality for the viewer is what they see on the screen (Wurtzel & Acker, 1979, p. 3).
The angle of view is another technique used to influence viewers of film. According to Paul Messaris (1994), Associate Professor at the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania, varying the angle on which the camera views a person in an image affects the viewer's perception of the power of that person. "According to this traditional usage, low angles of view, which create the effect of looking up at someone, enhance the image's implications of power, while high angles do the opposite" (p. 182-83). Angle of view has this effect because it mimics the form of a real world visual experience, the experience of looking up at someone vs. looking down at them. Messaris cites angle of view as a "standard illustration of the idea that visual conventions are like a language" (p. 182).
As with angle of view, long shots and close-ups have an effect on the viewer. Long shots "convey a colder, more distant and aloof mood," while close-ups "convey more warmth, intimacy, and . . . " a feeling of closeness (Adams, 1978, p. 162). Jack Hilton and Mary Knoblauch (1980) illustrate this idea by drawing the same parallel between real world visual experience and close-ups that Messaris does regarding angle of view:
A camera--especially one that has close-up powers--changes the viewer's perception. If you were sitting in an ordinary room attentively watching a speaker, he or she would be at some physical distance from you, anywhere from four feet away across a desk to twenty feet away at the other end of the conference room. But a television camera in close-up can move that person's face to an electronic distance physically equivalent to a nose-to-nose confrontation. If you were to speak to a person with your noses touching in a face to face meeting, you wouldn't see any more than you see when you kiss someone with your eyes wide open. When a television camera does the equivalent of that close-up, you get a perspective you can never have in real life. It changes reality. You see things in a person's face you never saw before. You get clues to the person's state of mind that would be hidden at ordinary physical distances. And because of this artificial perspective, participants in an electronic meeting can inadvertently send and receive signals that were never intended (p. 9).(3)
The 1960 debates between presidential candidates Richard Nixon and John Kennedy provide a dramatic example of this concept. It is generally accepted that Nixon lost because he looked terrible on television, particularly in the close-ups of his sweaty, seemingly unshaven face. Nixon left the studio thinking he had won, but television viewers disagreed (Halberstam, 1979, p. 339-42; Whetmore, 1993, p. 303; Dye & Zeigler, 1986, p. 16.).
Sound is also an important part of modern filmmaking, although it is perhaps less obvious than the visual aspects. In the silent era, usually a pianist or an organist would play along with the film. It was really quite an art form. They would often just watch the film and improvise music to go with it (Mast, 1981, p. 40). The first sound films were basically silent films with synchronized recorded music taking the place of the live accompanist (p. 181). As the technology of synchronizing the sound and the pictures became more sophisticated, filmmakers learned to control every aspect of the soundtrack. In addition to music, they could record, re-record, and overdub dialogue, add realistic background sound to film that was originally shot silent, or even dub in better, more realistic sounding gunshots.
As the techniques of sound editing and visual storytelling became more sophisticated, they became, in effect, a visual language which audiences gradually learned to interpret on an unconscious level. Early filmmakers were reluctant to use close ups in their films because they feared that the sight of disembodied heads would frighten their audiences, and they were probably right. In France in 1895, two brothers named Lumiére--pioneers in the infant technology of moving pictures--began showing short films to the paying public. These films were little more that 15 to 90 second long documentations of ordinary sights or events, such as mountain scenery, a cavalryman mounting and dismounting a horse, and the aptly titled epic, Workers Leaving the Lumiére Factory. When they showed a film of a train pulling into a station, "the audience shrieked and ducked when it saw the train hurtling toward them." They were actually afraid that the train would hit them (Mast, 1981, p. 18-19). By 1903, and the early, feature-length film The Great Train Robbery, audiences had become more sophisticated. The film is a western, and a sequence is shown at the end in which a bandit points his gun at the camera and starts firing. It was unrelated to the rest of the film and was only included to "thrill the customers with a direct assault." And instead of being frightened, audiences were delighted. Experience had taught them how to interpret the images on the screen, and they enjoyed the illusion of the direct assault in much the same way as later audiences enjoyed the illusions created by the 3-D movies of the 1950s (p. 35). No one explained to audiences exactly how the mechanics of film narrative could influence their perceptions. Audiences were, and are, merely exposed to film narrative like fish are exposed to water. And, like fish in water, audiences learn to function in the environment without necessarily understanding what it is or how it works. Since the interpretation of the visual storytelling happens on an unconscious level, it has a potential to mislead, not unlike the use of inflammatory, emotional language in printed works. But the visual language is more subtle and, therefore, easier to overlook.
Since filmmaking techniques are equivalent to a visual language, and television is a visual medium, certainly it follows that purveyors of television news would use these visual techniques to tell their stories. According to Neil Postman and Steve Powers (1992):
A good news package, like any good storytelling, tends to have a beginning, middle, and end with seamless, flowing connections. Accomplishing this requires people who have been trained in the arts and crafts of camera work, writing, editing, narrating, and journalism (p. 67).
In particular, it is the editing, of both pictures and sound, that has a pronounced effect on how we perceive news stories. In his book News From Nowhere, Television and the News, Edward Jay Epstein (1973) wrote:
Except for rare instances, what is seen on network news is not the event itself unfolding before the live camera, or even a filmed record, but a story about the event reconstructed on film from selected fragments of it (or even from reenactments of it) (p. 152).(4)
Basically, this is the way it works. The videotaped footage is shot first, following only general guidelines since a story line, or basic framework, has not been written yet. The cameraman, "trained in the arts and crafts of camera work," is generally free to decide what to shoot and how to shoot it, as long as the ultimate goal of providing nice looking, usable pictures is met. The footage they shoot usually includes establishing shots, or shots that set the scene--the courthouse; the street, including street signs; or the scene of the crime. Cutaways are also shot whenever time permits. These are things such as close-ups of the interview subject's distraught, wringing hands; shots of all the other cameras that are pointing at the person who is giving the press conference; or shots of the reporter holding up a microphone and nodding thoughtfully. These shots are used to cover jump cuts, or pieces of video that no longer match up after a segment has been edited out. A jump cut is equivalent to an ellipsis in a written quote, and the purpose of the cutaway is to disguise the fact that something has been removed.
Interviews are the sole basis of most news stories. According to Epstein (1973), the interview is important because
. . . it makes it possible for a news crew to obtain footage about an event which they were not permitted to film. By finding individuals who either participated in the event or at least have an apparent connection with it, the correspondent can re-create the event through the eyes of those interviewed. And if the questions are worded so that the answers will reflect an "immediate presence," as is the customary practice in network news, the presentation will appear to the audience to be of the event itself rather that a vicarious reconstruction of it (p. 154-55).
In other words, if the reporter interviews a person dressed in firefighter gear, who is covered with ash, and who describes, using the present tense, a wildfire, it will appear to the viewer to be the same as actually witnessing the fire. According to Donna Woolfolk Cross (1983), "Reporters are told to go after the human interest angle to a story," and she refers to these types of interviews as "how do you feel" interviews (p. 78). These are interviews with family members, spokespersons, or even passersby, who have an apparent connection to the person or event that is being covered. These are the neighbors who explain solemnly that the serial killer next door was always quiet and kept to himself.
Though they appear to be spontaneous, interviews in news stories are, in fact, as rehearsed and polished as time permits. This would not necessarily include shows like 60 Minutes, where interview subjects are often deliberately ambushed by reporters for dramatic effect, but for ordinary news stories it is common practice to repeat the same question a number of times, allowing the respondent to "sharpen his answer." It is also not unusual, after the person being interviewed is gone, for the reporter to rephrase the original questions and re-shoot them, so the editor has an adequate assortment of nice, crisp questions and nice, sharp answers to assemble into a seemingly coherent interview (Epstein, 1973, p. 155).
In his book Agents of Power: The Role of the News Media in Human Affairs, J. Herbert Altschull (1984) describes "three basic assumptions" about television news:
(1) that the interest of viewers is most likely to be maintained through easily recognized images and that it is likely to wander if the images are confusing; thus, complex issues are presented in terms of human experience rather than abstract ideas;
(2) that scenes of potential conflict are more interesting than placid scenes; and...
(3) that the attention span of the viewer is limited and can be prolonged mainly through action or subjects in motion (p. 140).(5)
So, given those assumptions, news camera crews must get as much footage of sirens and fires and car chases and flashing lights and smoking wreckage as they possibly can. It is necessary to shoot a great deal of footage; a 15 to 1 ratio is about standard. That means that every 15 minutes of raw footage yields about 1 minute of finished story (Adams, 1978, p. 158). After all this footage is shot, it is ready to be turned into a news story.
As alluded to earlier, the story line is the basic framework of the news story. Once the reporter and camera crew have provided enough taped footage, a tight story line is written, and the video is edited to fit the story line (Epstein, 1973, p. 153). The editing process involves literally slicing pieces of video out of the raw footage and "arranging them in an order which appears to represent a coherent view of the event" (p. 174). They are not looking for the truth, just a coherent view, presumably one coherent view from among many possible coherent views. The first step in the editing process is to view the videotaped footage in its entirety. Next, the producer or reporter designates which parts of the interviews, literally which sentences, are to be taken from the raw footage and used in the final piece. It is not necessary to keep the sentences, the questions and answers, in chronological order. The only requirement is that they flow smoothly and appear to be coherent. Reporter's questions and reactions to answers, shot by the lone cameraman after the interview subject has gone, can be crosscut with the subject's answers to simulate chronological continuity. Then cutaways, establishing shots, and, if necessary even shots from a film library or video news release are added to further enhance the illusion of continuity. If the videotape was shot silent, or the existing sound track is technically flawed and unusable, new sound must be added to help preserve the illusion of reality (p. 175). What you hear is not necessarily what it really sounded like.
There are certain other conventions that editors are expected to follow. For example, they should eliminate all technically inferior or flawed footage, they should "concentrate scenes of action so as to heighten the visual effect," and they should use only the portions of tape that fulfill the agreed-upon story line, "[tape] that contradicts or even appears to undercut any point in the story should be omitted" (Epstein, 1973, p. 174-78). They must not allow any inconvenient facts to get in the way of the storytelling.
There are some news programs on television that make a more substantial effort to provide viewers with useful, accurate information than the average daily offerings do. Two of the most notable examples are Nightline and The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer. Nightline is a late night ABC network production and The NewsHour is a PBS production. Both shows are issue oriented, meaning they focus less on daily events--fires and car chases--and more on broad topics --politics or the economy--that do not necessarily provide good opportunities for video-making.(6)What makes these programs more substantial than the typical, mainstream news programs is the combination of videotaped stories with live, in studio discussion of the issues between qualified experts with differing points of view. Issues are not resolved in this forum, they are merely raised and illuminated. The mainstream programs generally do not even raise questions about the deeper issues, choosing instead to engage in happy talk between the anchor and the weatherman. (Head & Sterling, 1982, p. 235).(7)The ideal mainstream story is a visual one, with a beginning, middle, and end. Open ended stories and unresolved issues are avoided, or at least minimized, because they may be unsettling to the viewer. The goal is to prevent the viewers from being so upset by the news that they will change the channel (Cross, 1983, p. 65-67).
Have broadcasters, controlled by evil corporate conglomerates, conspired to reduce our mainstream information flow to action, adventure, and feel-good fiction? No. Television news is the way it is because of the viewers. The viewing habits of society have shaped the technology and techniques of TV news. The ratings system is the driving force behind all programming decisions made in commercial television. Ratings tell broadcasters the size of the audience their programming draws in any given time slot, and the size of the audience determines how much broadcasters can charge advertisers for running their commercials. Broadcasters have deduced that the majority of news viewers want programs that are fast paced, happy, hopeful and non-controversial, because those are the programs that draw the largest audiences. A more substantial format for mainstream news programs, initiated by broadcasters, would be a welcome change. But it is not likely to occur in commercial broadcasting as long as ratings and profit rule the decision making process. Since the government has abdicated any responsibility for serious regulation, the only other force capable of initiating such a change is the audience. If enough people were to stop watching the news programs with the storytelling happy talk formats, broadcasters would make changes. The problem is that the viewers will not stop watching. If television news lacks substance, it is because the viewers want it that way.
Why are viewers drawn to this style of news/storytelling? The answer may be that 6 to 8 hours of daily TV watching has conditioned them to perceive reality in this artificial way. Michael Novak (1991) asserts that
the system of teaching which I learned in my student days--careful and exact exegesis proceeding serially from point to point, the careful definition and elucidation of terms in an argument and the careful scrutiny of chains of inference, and the like--now meet a new form of resistance. . . . [T]oday the minds and affections of the brighter students are teeming with images, vicarious experiences, and indeed of actual travel and accomplishments. Their minds race ahead and around the flanks of lines of argument. "Dialectics" rather than "logic" or "exegesis" is the habit of mind they are most ready for (p. 5).
He attributes this transformation of students' psyche to the crosscutting influence of the mass media, primarily television. Barbara Conroy and Barbara Schindler Jones (1986), writing on the topic of library management, off-handedly observe that managers must adapt to a changing work ethic among employees who are more concerned with earning money and finding leisure time in which to spend it than in furthering the goals of the organization.
These so-called "life-stylers," who are entering the workforce in increasing numbers, have been greatly influenced by television and the message it conveys. Since the "Sesame Street" generation is used to a lot of mental, visual, and emotional stimulation, they expect the work place to be exciting and to offer them involvement and a meaningful role. (Conroy & Schindler Jones 74-75)
The preceding statements, while convincing, are nonetheless anecdotal. But at least one large empirical study reaches the conclusion that watching TV does have measurable effects on human beings. Led by psychologist Tannis MacBeth Williams (1973), researchers in Canada studied three communities, one which had no television, one which had television with only one channel, and one which had television with four channels (p. 4). Results of the study suggest that television may have a negative effect on reading competence, creativity, and community involvement. Researchers also concluded that TV influences attitudes toward sex-role stereotypes, as well as having the potential for changing those attitudes.(8)
If decades of television watching has altered human consciousness, is it reasonable to expect that television viewers will choose to view something other than what they have been conditioned to view? Or is it that the audience is not offered a real choice. It is true that all the six o'clock news programs on network television have the same format, and that the only way to choose between them is on the basis of style: Who has the flashiest graphics, and which anchor has the best hair. But it is also true that a Nightline or a NewsHour, required to earn competitive ratings in the same time slot as such programs, would not survive.
TV news stories are subjective exercises in filmmaking technology. The beating of Rodney King by LAPD officers in the early part of this decade might have received no coverage at all, certainly not more than a sentence or two on the local evening news, had there not been a video record of the event. The riot sparked by the acquittals of those LAPD officers was most certainly exacerbated by the live television coverage of the initial violence at Florence and Normandy. Viewers who have been taught to perceive television as reality now perceive reality as television. The medium is the message.(9)The technology drives the social change that drives the technology.
References
Adams, W. C. (1978). Visual analysis of newscasts: Issues in social science research. In W. C. Adams & F. Schreibman (Eds.), Television Network News, Issues in Content Research. Washington D. C.: George Washington University.
Altschull, J. H. (1984). Agents of power, the role of the news media in human Affairs. New York: Longman.
Cross, D. W. (1983). Mediaspeak: How television makes up your mind. New York: Coward-McCann, Inc.
Conroy, B. & Schindler Jones, B. (1986). Improving communication in the library. Phoenix, AZ: Oryx Press.
Dye, T. R. & Zeigler, H. (1986). American politics in the media age. Monterey, CA: Brooks/Cole Publishing Company.
Epstein, E. J. (1973). News from nowhere, television and the news. New York: Random House.
Halberstam, D. (1979). The powers that be. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
Head, S. W. & Sterling, C. H. (1982). Broadcasting in America: A survey of television, radio, and new technologies (4th ed.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.
Hilton, J. & Knoblauch, M. (1980). On television! A survival guide for media interviews. New York: Amacom.
MacBeth Williams, T. (Ed.), (1986). The impact of television: A natural experiment in three communities. Orlando, FL: Academic Press.
Mast, G. (1981). A short history of the movies. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc.
Messaris, P. (1994). Visual literacy vs. visual manipulation. Critical Studies in Mass Communication, 11, 180-203.
Novak, M. (1991). Television shapes the soul. In J. Hanson & A. Alexander (Eds.), Taking sides: Clashing views on controversial issues in mass media and society. (pp. 4-11). Guilford, CT: Dushkin Publishing Group.
Postman, N. & Powers, S. (1992). How to watch TV news. New York: Penguin.
Whetmore, E. J. (1993). Mediamerica, mediaworld: Form, content, and consequence of mass communication. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
Wurtzel, A. & Acker, S. (1989). Television production (3rd. ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Footnotes
1 See also Cross, p. 68 and Hilton & Knoblauch, p. 6. According to Cross, "Seven out of ten people now get their information about the world exclusively from TV."
2 Though a working television system was demonstrated at the 1939 World's Fair in New York, serious commercial broadcasting did not begin until 1948, see Head & Sterling, p. 186-87.
3 It may be of interest to note that, rather than a critical analysis, the book by Hilton and Knoblauch is intended as a guide for people who are going to be television interview subjects and are unfamiliar with the medium.
4 Epstein's News From Nowhere seems to be a highly regarded work on the subject of television news. Many of the works cited in this paper list Epstein as a source. Even though the technology of news gathering has advanced considerably since 1973, the techniques used to construct news stories have changed little. This can be verified by simply watching any nightly news broadcast with a critical eye.
5 Altschull's "three basic assumptions" about television news are actually a documented paraphrase of Epstein, see Epstein, p. 152-80.
6 The NewsHour also includes a brief summary of daily news.
8 Specifically, the researchers suggest that more positive portrayals of women on television could be used to change stereotyped sex-role attitudes (MacBeth Williams, 1973, p. 290).
9This is the famous phrase used by Marshall MacLuhan to reject the content of mass media in favor of focusing on the "profound and far-reaching effects" of the media itself (Head & Sterling, 1982, p. 517).