Sunday, November 11, 2007
Hard news vs. Soft News
I am in a class called Current Issues in the News. and the main objective is to use critical thinking to answer various questions within groups and present them to the class. I honestly was scared sh*%less after my first grade, but it got better with time. I have learned SO much from this class! A lot of the questions were related to how society is attracting more to soft news now, rather than hard news. One group had to show the differences between an entertainment show and a newscast. It was pretty shocking to see the differences! First of all, in the past newscasts (like 20/20) had 2 anchors sitting at a desk/table and reading the news from either papers on their table or the teleprompter. Also in the past, the entertainment shows had 2 people standing and talking to the camera with only a teleprompter to go by. Now, they have started to switch styles. The hard news anchors are standing with only a teleprompter, and vice versa. These are small changes that probably a lot of people missed when they began occurring, but important ones nonetheless.
Viewers and ratings have dropped considerably for the hard news shows, and of course gone up for the entertainment shows. Hard news shows are trying to grasp the Internet and use it for their advantage, but entertainment news has already mastered it. Take for example, TMZ. They started on the Internet, and have become so popular that they now have a 5-days/week TV show! It's almost embarrassing for the hard news. Perez Hilton's website has crashed several times due to the overwhelming amounts of people trying to view his page. I haven't heard of any issues the hard news shows had like this.
The hard question is how do we stop it? It's what society wants. Everyone worries about ratings, so they have to give the people what they want.
I just finished my last group project for the Current Issues class, and I also spoke about this issue. I showed a clip of a news anchor from the "Cup of Joe" show, showing Mika Brzezenski attempting to rip up the story of Paris Hilton going to jail because she believed it shouldn't be their lead story. The creator of the show, Joe Scarbrough, is in the clip telling her to run it. She then tries to rip it and when that fails. burn it with a lighter. I respect her immensely for doing that. If that's how extreme we, as journalists have to get to try and change things, then so be it. What will it take?! ¶ posted by Brenna at 10:01 PM •
Viewers and ratings have dropped considerably for the hard news shows, and of course gone up for the entertainment shows. Hard news shows are trying to grasp the Internet and use it for their advantage, but entertainment news has already mastered it. Take for example, TMZ. They started on the Internet, and have become so popular that they now have a 5-days/week TV show! It's almost embarrassing for the hard news. Perez Hilton's website has crashed several times due to the overwhelming amounts of people trying to view his page. I haven't heard of any issues the hard news shows had like this.
The hard question is how do we stop it? It's what society wants. Everyone worries about ratings, so they have to give the people what they want.
I just finished my last group project for the Current Issues class, and I also spoke about this issue. I showed a clip of a news anchor from the "Cup of Joe" show, showing Mika Brzezenski attempting to rip up the story of Paris Hilton going to jail because she believed it shouldn't be their lead story. The creator of the show, Joe Scarbrough, is in the clip telling her to run it. She then tries to rip it and when that fails. burn it with a lighter. I respect her immensely for doing that. If that's how extreme we, as journalists have to get to try and change things, then so be it. What will it take?! ¶ posted by Brenna at 10:01 PM •