NEWS - examination of Evening News

BBC NEWS


'The news' is a fairly general term, so when approaching working on a news project it pays to understand how such things are presented, to do this I will be examining the core features of a news package, in this case, I will be using BBC news as an example.

BBC NEWS at 10 - 26th of October 2016

The program had eight news packages, each announced in the studio, each signed off by the presenter, by doing so the program clarifies the packages and recenters the audience after each story, below are the topics expanded upon.

Calais jungle eviction
the first package was regarding the Calais jungle and its demolition, positioned here, in my view as its the strongest as far as public interest goes, people want to know what's going on there at the moment and the story is exceptionally current, the BBC shies away from informality so this package didn't allow for much audience empathy with the refugees, to maintain unbiased reporting, the BBC used three different perspectives, cut from interviews taken in Calais. the three perspectives were those of a french official, a refugee, and an aid worker specializing in vulnerable people.
one notable thing that happened was, after cutting back to the studio, a live feed from the journalist is picked up, providing an update on the situation.

Iraqi military ops
this package was again, reasonably current. the reporter was walking in the remains of a village previously held by IS fighters, tonally this package seemed to be designed to make the audience emote with the villagers, who had previously been used as human shields against Iraqi artillery, the reporter's voice seems far more emotional when compared to the previous story. In this package, there is a lot of translated speech from Iraqi military officers who are leading the production crew around the location. following the package is a brief update regarding the situation in Iraq, talking about the possible destruction of a school.

Politics - UKIP debacle
the programme then moves on to UKIP news, talking about the recent allegations regarding the striking of an individual, this package is primarily GV's of the location of the possible assault, instead of interviews this package appears to use primarily statements from party members, and evidence from an internal enquiry. some emphasis is put upon the UKIP official turn of events, visiting the exact location of the possible assault.
this story isn't as current as the previous ones and the way the incident is explored informs the audience of a hint of truth editing on the party's part. the reporting and story appear bland compared to the events pictured in the previous packages.

Non-package italian earthquake
a short, studio-led and spoken cutaway regarding another earthquake in Italy follows the UKIP report. using in equal measures actuality and graphics to express the event visually.

US politcs
 an extremely current and balanced piece, this report is made up[ of a large number of GV's recorded over the course of the presidential race, produced by two embedded reporters, one likely senior to the other. This piece expresses how each party candidate seems to connect with their constituents, noting TRUMP's use of His plane as a prop to aid him in his campaign, this package also notes Hillary's recent use of allies to combat TRUMP's dogmatic approach, the package ends with a series of vox pops regarding trump and his supporter's comments regarding American electoral corruption and whether they'd accept the results. this report may divide the audience depending upon factors regarding their politics, tonally this report is very balanced and to the point, the presenter speaks with authority and appears to be a senior journalist.

money 
a short package regarding an apparent positive change in the economy
this piece, for a money related story, used very few statistics, relying almost solely on government figures when they did use them, simplifying the current state of the economy and almost misleading audiences by not mentioning contributing factors to some of the situations mentioned in the package. politically the package initially appears mute, however, there does seem to be an undercurrent of the ruling party's point of view and a small bias in their favor.

Sport
skipped - irrelevant to general news and uninteresting, of note is the shift in tone, from adversarial during the US package, this story is more generalized and speaks of the most popular sport in the country, football, as well as the most popular team, manchester united. I would say this piece is populist.

Bakeoff
the final package seems to be designed to round off the program with a 'fluffy' story, to round off the show with an emotionally easy, unpolitical piece.

the program follows the standard modern news format, starting with headlines or hard hitting pices before moving onto politics, sport, and financial information. the stories are almost listed both in order of importance (in relation to the perceived audience) and emotional effect, this helps to retain the audience in some ways as it almost shocks them into attention before slowly bringing the alarm back down to base levels.

from a purely mechanical point of view, the program again follows normally accepted tropes from the news genre, introducing packages in a studio, signing off on location, and smaller news updates regarding time critical events or ongoing events.

in relation to our project, this layout can be seen in miniature, starting on our biggest story and then going through to our live.

 news packages have several key mechanical features, without these, a news package doesn't necessarily fit the standard, however, some variance is observable and often preferred. the list below outlines a few of the codices that I believe to be core to making a news package.


Writing to pictures
the bulk f the package is a series of 'general views', or in other words a series of shots that visually tell the story, often the spoken script is written after the filming of most if not all of the footage, thus a wide variance of shots and interviews is key.

Voice over
the voice over tells the story as the footage illustrates it, a key component as the story would be unclear and lacking definition with only interviews and GV's alone

Filler
some evidence of a story is boring to an audience, this is particularly prevalent in the reporting of the recent recession as news reports started using almost overly-well made graphics to illustrate story's that primarily derive their worth from statistics and numbers.

interviews
 two types of interview are observable in news packages, the repeated interview and the 'live' interview
the repeated interview utilizes multiple takes in order to allow for better editing and to allow the interviewee to improve their answers with every take, this type of interview is often planned further in advance and is more often used in documentaries.
Live news interviews are mostly used in live segments, however As-live interviews can be seen in full news packages, one of the reasons for this may be contributor availability, precluding the reporter from staging a full interview.