I’m not a person who likes to watch the news very often no matter how important it is, mostly because it makes me sad to see all the bad that goes on not only in our city but around the world. But for the first time, in my 21 years of life, the news didn’t consist of more bad than good news.
After watching today’s broadcast I noticed that the network will lure their audience in with a top hitting “Juicy” story or by what they think their views want to hear; and because it was a Sunday and we all love our football fox six lead with coverage of the Packers vs Lions game. What I thought was most interesting about this specific broadcast was that this segment on the packers was almost five minutes long while everything else was 3 minutes or less.
In the 30 minutes of news that I watched I found that a majority of the news anchors are male and caucasian while only one of the news anchors was female and of color. Another thing I noticed was that a majority of the civilians that were interviewed were caucasian and male.
This broadcast covered about eight different stories. Four of the eight stories were “good news” (packers winning, Reviving the Peace in Milwaukee, 18th annual “Race for Cure” outcome, and jobs coming back to Milwaukee.) Two were neutral (forecast and politics) and three were “bad news” (Shooting on Milwaukee’s West Side, Man drowns in Lagoon, death of Arnold Palmer and Jose Fernandez) I think the reality that is presented to the viewers is first handed to us in a manor of what we want to hear about, the things that will capture the audience to begin with.
So you thought that the media shapes reality by only giving us the stories that we want to hear? I highly agree! Television and news is a business, so the station needs stories that people are interested to come back and hear again. I love that you highlighted this concept in your piece. I watch Fox News whenever I am at home and I totally agree, most of their news can get kinda bleak. It's great that you watched on a day when Wisconsin was excited about something positive like the Packers.
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