COVERAGE
The stories we decide to cover are influenced by how easy the story is to get, the economics that drive the media, and elitism - which strives to cover stories of interest to people who are important or educated.
--Ease--
If stories are covered based on ease, a reporter may choose to cover a story based on thinking "I cover what I see/what I know to be true/what my friends tell me, etc."
--Economics--
If stories are covered based on the economic benefit - a reporter chooses a story based on thinking "I cover stories that people want to read/stories that will sell, etc."
--Elitism--
If stories are covered based on the elitism principle, a reporter chooses the story based on thinking "I cover what educated people care about/what important people care about, etc."
An important part of discussing what we decide to cover includes the concern to not alienate demographics. Sometimes when vocabulary is too confusing, the media comes to lack conversationality. It is important to make sure the media we create is accessible to people of all education levels. Also, another way we can alienate demographics is by focusing on too narrow of an audience or topic. I think that this is important to understand, but I do not think that it is always a bad thing. If you are a local news show, you should have a focus on local issues - but you should also give the wide scope of things too. However, if your show is a morning business talk show, there is no reason to try extra hard to include stories about the local zoo. I think that in the case of a specialized show/audience it is okay to alienate demographics because the audience knows what you are producing may or may not be of interest to them.
MARKETING
We talked about the different types of market research and how it can be improved. We talked about how surveys are not the best way to do research because they "Already have defined for people what the range of choices will be, so they are not telling you what they like" (Lee Ann Brady). Also with surveys, it is hard to measure how the audience responds to stories because they are often answering questions that are not open-ended.
Another type of market research are focus groups. Focus groups are probably the best form of media research. Their downfall is that they are not very scientific - the discussion varies every time. However, focus groups can give a researcher a closer look into the mind of the consumer as they discuss thoughts about the media.
When doing market research, it's important to find out about the audience, their interests, their needs - rather than just what news they will want. It is more effective to know how to reach the audience and give them what they need than what a survey may say they want to hear. I like the quote shared in class, "If journalism has lost its way, the reason in large part is that it has lost meaning in people's lives."
SENSATIONALISM
"Human emotion is at the heart of what makes something news. Once you try to manufacture it, or use it to bring attention to yourself, you have crossed the line into something there already is enough of -- reality entertainment" (Elements).
I love the above quote that was shared in class. I think it is a powerful statement that emotion is a large part of what we do, but that it should not be the means to making our stories interesting. Emotion in a story should just come by itself - and if we make more of the emotion than there is we can quickly become less credible.
It's important to note that news is subjective. Something that is a big story to some may not be a big deal at all to others. This was evident in our class discussion as people shared what they thought was a big deal and what was merely entertainment.
CLICK HERE to see the plethora! of stories surrounding Michael Jackson's death.
The good thing about using sensationalism is that it sells! The bad thing is that it is not proportional journalism. A reporter has to be careful that what they are covering is actually news, and not just "reality entertainment."Another part of sensationalism and emotion is that people tend to want emotional stories - and not emotional journalists. This ties in to the discussion we have had many times throughout the semester about how involved a journalist should be with his/her story. CLICK HERE to see a story with which some think the journalist, Anderson Cooper, became too involved. I believe that a journalist should care about the story - but he should be wary of how involved he is with the story, and make sure that the involvement does not skew the reporting of the actual facts.
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