Rating the Headlines

Rating the Headlines

Introduction

The news coming on the TV channel is a product of a lot of activity taking place in the background. Facts must first be gathered and then communicated in an effective way. Since the objective of any news bulletin is to make sure the audience listens to it, all planning is done with the audience in mind.

Central to this 'communication process' is the order in which the news is presented to the audience. The attention of the audience is extremely important and a lot of mental effort is expended in this process before coming down to the final running order.

The essay below discusses the dynamics behind the ordering of news followed by an example of one of the news bulletins of BBC world, one of the most viewed news channels in the world. Following this, I will then discuss the rationale of the news producer or editor to present the news in that specific order.

Discussion

The main target for any news bulletin is the people who are watching the bulletin i.e. the audience. Therefore, all efforts have to be made to ensure that the audience remains glued to the news bulletin. In this regard, the ordering of the news is extremely crucial. News will have to be arranged in a descending order of value. News of the highest value will naturally come first, followed by news of relatively less value. This determining of value or in simpler terms, the ultimate authority for the arrangement of news is the responsibility of the news producer or program editor. In the case of BBC, whose bulletin has been discussed below, the person responsible for making the final decision is titled as the program editor (BBC, 2013).

The most valuable news is termed as the lead story. Choosing a lead story is no mean task; news anchors and the rest of the crew are often seen debating on this matter. The choice of the lead story is influenced by many factors. These include having an understanding about the interests of the audience. Any listener would pay attention to news that is related to him/her or in other words, the news has something in it for them. Therefore, news that has an impact on the general population can certainly be considered as the lead story (Behr, 1985).

Besides this, other factors also have to be considered like the resources linked with the story which is ...