Page 503 - Battleground The Media Volume 1 and 2

| Sensat onal sm, Fear Monger ng, and Tablo d Med a

Changing corporate ownership has affected local news reporting in other ways
as well. When stations in the same region belong to one corporation, owners will
often pool newsroom production, uniting the news staff who must then share
the same news library and resources. The same editors and reporters will pro-
duce the news for the various outlets, and also write the news for the converged
Web site. Though communities may have the same number of stations, fewer
reporters will be producing the news. In this way, corporations return profits
to their stockholders by making news cheaper to produce, but with reduced
news budgets and staff, reporters are racing to get stories out. Corporate profits
also demand increased circulation and ratings and these combined economic
requirements have ratcheted up the need for quick, attention-grabbing content.
Today reporters often fill the news hole with the easiest reporting on crime, ce-
lebrity, scandals, sports, and entertainment. Newsrooms send staff reporters out
to cover the ever-present accidents, fires, and burglaries, and treat each as if they
were the worst in history. Covering the weather has become a prominent feature
of much local news reporting, and it is easily hyped with dire predictions about
“your morning commute” as the unwitting journalist reports “live” in the street,
drenched from rain or snow, in what has become the excessively dramatized daily
weather report. Such exaggerated treatment of often trivial topics has become
a favorite target for political satirists such as Jon Stewart on The Daily Show.

TimELinEss anD ThE sEriaLizED sCanDaL
Sensational news is often the latest installment of the hottest scandal. In these
cases, the speed of news-gathering and reporting allows for little reflection and re-
quires rapid response and repackaging of stories already in circulation. A shock-
ing story that captures national headlines can become highly cost-effective as it
is serialized into a continuous stream of reporting that fills up the news cycle and
offers the latest details to a public eager for the hottest revelation. This type of
coverage has resulted in the excessive treatment of stories such as the O. J. Simp-
son murder trial, the Monica Lewinsky scandal, and the fall of celebrity socialite
Paris Hilton, just to name a few. As journalists chase the same story lest they be
left out, they become desperate to find another detail, angle, or personal intrigue,
and reporters and news anchors often fill in the blanks with endless speculation,
dubious assertions, or groundless rumors and gossip, much of which simply does
not classify as serious journalism. Media critics and analysts argue that in many
of these cases, news is hard to distinguish from popular fictional genres such as
soap operas and crime dramas. As news merges with the formats and genres of
fictional programs and narratives, it serves to reinforce fundamental cultural and
social beliefs instead of offering unvarnished accounts of events of the day.

synErgy anD inFoTainmEnT

With fewer and fewer resources available to gather and produce meaningful
news, and with increasing expectations for ratings-producing content, news-
rooms come to rely on the entertainment divisions of the parent company for news