Journalism and Political Exclusion by Clarke Debra M.;

Author:Clarke, Debra M.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 3332822
Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press
Published: 2014-09-18T00:00:00+00:00

OTHER CRITICAL AND NON-CRITICAL PERCEPTIONS OF NEWS CONTENT

In view of their access to Canadian as well as American, British, and other network news, research participants were highly critical of the production constraints associated with television news generally, many of which were readily perceived in the newscasts that were viewed during the interview sessions and in the newscasts discussed throughout the news diaries. Time constraints in the form of limited story and program lengths, for example, were seen by many to necessarily preclude a comprehensive understanding of the events reported. These and other production constraints were also seen to extend to other news media, including newspapers.

There are certain ones [news stories] that may pique your interest. You’d like to know a little more and then – boom! – you’re on to something else. You know, I would think that a lot of the stories that went in here, all the different news that they showed, you know, there’s a lot in that short span of time, and you didn’t have enough time to focus on certain things. They had a lot of different things going on in that short period of time.

I find that a lot of things I want to know information about, that I don’t get the details of it that I want to hear. I just get a briefing on it, and then you are left to, you think you’ll turn on the news and hear what you want to hear, but then, no, you are left to, you have to go to the newspapers. So you’ve got to go and find out from all different places bits and pieces of what you want to know, because you’re not getting it all … If there is something that I really want to know about, I’ll sit here and I’ll flicker through all the different news stations, and just keep going over them. And I’ll have to watch the same ones a few times just to make sure that’s all they’re all telling us right now, you know. And it is frustrating because there are certain things you want to know about, but you can’t find out as much detail as you want. (WCM, age 39, Interview #014)

Perhaps the most definitive confirmation of television journalism’s fundamental inability to inform was experienced by research participants who attempted to make sense of news reports that were not subject to conventional time constraints. The events of 11 September 2001 led broadcasters throughout the United States, Canada, and elsewhere to abandon regular program schedules in their entirety in order to provide unprecedented amounts of continuous news coverage. Rather than render the events intelligible, however, many interviewees remained confounded and perplexed months and even years later, as discussed in both preliminary and follow-up interviews.18 For example, in November and December of 2001, these research participants continued to struggle with their understanding of the events:

Since September 11th they have been going on and on and on about what happened on September 11th and what’s following it, the war and everything else, and yet they are beating around the bush.

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