Learning Unit 3 Flashcards
List various types of news i.e. Hard news.
- hard news
- soft news
- spot news
- developing news
- continuing news
Explain hard news.
- concerns occurrences potentially available to analysis or interpretation
- consists of “factual presentations of occurances deemed newsworthy
- stories we feel we have to know about
- concerns important matters
Explain soft news.
- feature or human-interest stories
- interesting because they deal with the life of human beings
- we want to know about them because they interest us
- e.g. Justin Bieber breakup
Explain spot news.
- sub-classification of hard news
- breaking news
- subject of focus is usually mature, legal or technological
- e.g. Japan hit by an earthquake
Explain developing news.
- sub-classification of hard news and is similar to spot news
- occurs when it takes awhile to learn the facts associated with a breaking story
- remains developing news as long as facts emerge
Explain continuing news.
- a series of stories on the same subject based upon events occurring over a period of time
Differentiate between non-scheduled, pre-scheduled news, and un-scheduled news.
Non scheduled news
- an occurrence whose date of dissemination as news is determined by news workers
- often involves investigative journalism
- e.g. Companies putting syrup in honey
- doesn’t matter if story is released in a week or month
Prescheduled news
- an occurrence announced by a certain date for its conveyors
- news or it is into be disseminated the day it occurs or the day after
- e.g. Budget speech
Unscheduled news
- news event that occurs unexpectedly
- news must be disseminated that day or the day after
What are killehbergs 8 major developments that have affected the news media during the past 30 years.
- Introduction of cable tv - the beginning of 24h news cycle and the steady decline of newspaper readership levels
- Introduction of advanced comm tech I’d satellites, internet, computers..
- Destruction of small, family-owned news orgs by big media giants - emergence of chain papers and multi-media production companies
- Rise of media giants that use synergistic production and distribution strategies (different branches of the company share and cross-promote each other’s resources and services)
- Related destruction of legendary divisions between managerial (profit motive) and editorial (truth motive) operations.
- Birth of new forms and formats (new tech for media) such as TV news, magazine dramatized news footage and production driven news selections
- Deregulating (fewer/less strict rules) of media markets and specifically restrictions on ownership of multiple media outlets in the same city
- Crisis of legitimacy of journalists who complain that new conditions of production undermine their ability to meet their own standards. (Must be on their phones and laptops 24/7)
Discuss the evolution of major media companies through 4 key development strategies.
FIRST
- taking companies out of private hands
- raising capital with public stock offerings
- reforming the corporate mission to meet the bottom line demands of stockholders
SECOND
- bringing in new corporate manager to streamline production systems in the newsroom and to reduce labour costs
THIRD
- making massive investments in digital comm technologies and remaking the corporate infrastructure
FOURTH
- establishing lines of horizontal integration in the company
- therefore acquire/merge with other content providers and distributors (i.e. TV, internet, magazine…) and link the marketing and news divisions across firms
Explain who journalists had to adapt to the “new newsroom” in terms of their role and responsibilities as well as time and space constraints.
- different journalistic mission (determined by production values of TV news)
- everyone recognizes the power of TV to reach a massive audience (TV = route to power, wealth and influence)
- deepest source of the journalistic frustration is because they’re forced to take on new responsibilities in the same work (requires serious independent thinking)
- in 1970’s, national TV was broadcast only once a day allowing for a 24h span to cover breaking news
- in the digital age, the time cycle is very different (news cyclone)
- emergence of instant internet news sites have eliminated temporal boarders in the news day. There is always breaking news to produce, consume and react against
- pressure leads to mistakes
Evaluate how synergy and digital systems have changed media companies.
FOR MAJOR MEDIA COMPANIES
- coordinated news-making activities keep labour costs down
- increase output and efficiency of the production process
FOR REPORTERS
- real professional challenges
- the more they work with different media, the more they realize that content doesn’t move easily from one medium to the next
- therefore they must develop techniques for translating work across platforms
JOURNALISM TEXTBOOKS
- empathize developing skills that work in several media
- veterans worry that being telegenic will become the most NB skill for entry level reporting jobs
- new responsibilities reduce editorial staff’s time to report and think about their work
Determine how convergence of new media market has affected the target marketing process by media companies.
- digital news systems have enabled media orgs to target market at new levels – they use this to make specialized info and entertainment products that appeal to narrow groups of consumers
- strategy of most companies is to locate/target affluent audiences
- new digital technologies enable companies to target coverage to the suburban areas that contain the most affluent readers
Discuss timing related challenges that could face print magazines.
- future oriented schedule = problematic for those in the industry
- it’s difficult for staff to think and work so far into the future
- ie have to write a winter holiday gift guide while sweating in summer
- problem = perishability of info - info may be irrelevant or contradict by the time the story is released
- this is complex because of the two month window between a magazine issue’s closing and cover date
- material can be both outdated and ill timed
- Ashlee Simpson
Discuss the benefits associated with moving content from traditional medium to the web.
- don’t have a long lead time
- accessibility
- cost effective
- stories can be published as and when necessary
- increased online readership
- advertising is cheaper and you can change it as and when necessary
Discuss the challenges associated with moving content from traditional medium to the web.
- information saturation
- fast paced schedule
- expensive maintenance
- credibility questioned
- intangible
- comments can’t be controlled
- inaccessible for those who don’t have internet access