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News is often described as the ‘window of the world’, but sometimes what we see on the news isn’t necessarily the true facts of what is happening around the world. News is often very subjective, especially in television, and sometimes the best pictures are picked over the best story. As journalists, we are responsible for society and frequently news leads viewers to a narrow-minded view of the world, often showing them what we want them to see rather than what they need to see. As Harcup explains (2009, P3) ‘Journalism informs society about itself and makes public that which would otherwise be private.’ News is extremely subjective, especially when determining what order a news bulletin should go in and what stories to pick. Often news falls into one or more categories (Harcup, 2009, P43), which are based on what will interest a particular audience. Every week in our news days, we would discuss the order in which our stories would go and also how interesting the story is to our viewer. Often, stories that are more accessible and have better pictures tend to be higher in the bulletin. However, news which often affects more people will make the top bulletin. With news being so subjective, it reframes the viewer from accessing this eliminating process. Often, stories that are more effective and interesting to the viewer are eliminated as finding the person or pictures may prove difficult. This can inflict a very narrow-minded view of the world to the viewer as they are only viewing what we decide is newsworthy, whereas if they had seen the bulletin, they may have argued for other stories to make the news. TV is extremely labour intensive. As a viewer, they only see the presenters presenting the news and not the team behind them. As... ... middle of paper ... ...e the bulletin and also have plenty of time in the day to edit. Overall, in the last few months of working in mock news days, I have learnt the true factors behind what we see on our television screens. It is a very narrow view on the world, and often a mixture of logistics and legislation prevent some news from even entering our televisions. I found that sometimes the most interesting and valuable of news topics is not picked in order to prevent things such as copycat behaviour and also because a person in unavailable. Broadcast journalism is heavily based on pictures for our viewers to be told the story, and that words are used just to enhance the story. Overall, I believe our mock news days have truly reflected what it is like to work in a real life broadcast environment, and the stress and pressures journalists work through in order to put news on our screens.

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