Discussions about teaching media literacy in the classroom

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Post for June 18th - Local TV News Viewing

6:00 PM Kare 11 Local News

Viewing Log

Weather/Breaking News
Story #1: Weather Storms in the Area from the night before
Time: 1:15 minutes

Weather/Local News
Story #2: Austin Tornadoes!
Time: 1:19 minutes

National News Teaser
Story #3: Music Piracy
Time: 22 seconds
Preview for 10:00 News

Local News
Story #4: Denney Hecker Lawsuit
Time: 1:47 minutes

Local News
Story #5: St. Paul Police Abuse Test
Time: 46 seconds

Local Events
Story #6: Special Olympics MN
Time: 26 seconds

Local News
Story #7: Lowry Ave Bridge Closing/Demolition
Time: 58 seconds

Entertainment Story
Story #8: Black Bears in North Metro
Time: 1:50 minutes

Visual
Story #9: Sky Cam View of Lake Calhoun
Time: 10 seconds

Weather
Story #10: Weather Report/Forecast
Time: 3:50 seconds

Sports
Story #11: Sports Report - Twins and US Open
Time: 3:22

Local Events
Story #12: Back to 50's weekend
Time 28 seconds

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Reflection on viewing:

I typically watch the KARE 11 newscast at 5:00 pm, but have never paid too much attention to the actual stories and the amount of time spent on specific segments. I typically go to "Google News" when I really want to get news information. What I found to be really interesting is the large amount of time spent on weather and sports. The weather most definitely overtook this newscast, probably because of the big storms the night before, but even with the daily/weekend forecast came up, the amount of time given to the segment was significantly longer than other segments. Sports was the next thing with a significant amount of time given for the forecast. This puts an emphasis on entertainment value (sports) and the news casters' ability to recognize the concerns of the public (is more severe weather coming? and what will the weekend look like?).

The minimal time spent on local stories such as the Special Olympics or the Lowry Ave bridge closing shows the audience how little these events are valued. The major emphasis on weather shows the importance of that the news station holds on the weather as well as the public. It was really interesting to see how little time was actually spent on news stories, and how the emphasis was on sports and weather. This show how TV news is very focused on entertainment value vs actual news reporting.

4 comments:

  1. Abi, I watched the KARE 11 news at 5pm and thought many of same things. There was so much coverage for weather, granted there was a thunderstorm watch (but only for ONE county).I think it's interesting the difference in the 5pm and 6pm news since there's only about a half hour inbetween them and the content is different. It's not as if there was breaking news that was discovered in the half hour between the shows. It makes me wonder why I didn't hear about black bears in the north metro.

    Hope all is well with you and you're managing to have some much deserved summer fun:)

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  2. I agree that the weather overtook the news for part of this week probably because of the severe weather here. I watched Channel 5 eyewitness news and much of the same thing that you observed happened in the news cast. They constatly referred back to the weather during the newscast that I watched and very little "news" was discussed. The little news they did show was very vague and lacked details.

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  3. Hi Abigail,
    I found that weather and sports really dominated channel 5 at 6:30 too. There weren't even storms on the day I did the log. I think this is because they tailor the broadcast to what their viewers want, and people love to talk weather and sports! It's interesting that KARE 11 had little local news. Channel 5 was the opposite--almost nothing national. Nice blog!

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  4. Abi -

    Like you, I also found that much of the news broadcast I analyzed dealt with the more "entertaining" aspect of the television show than of the actual reporting itself. I couldn't help but notice how much their chatting to each other distracted from the news at hand, going so far as to blatantly make fun of each other for an entire minute... more time than was devoted to the Special Olympics story and house fire story combined. Is this because more people are getting news off the internet? Do they have to actually make their shows more "entertaining" so people actually watch it? hmm....

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