What is the News?
NBC10 24-03-2014
#1 "N Korea Fact or Fiction?"
#3 Princeton Admissions more selective
#5 Snooki's Wedding
#4 Mother of Braid Dead California GirlÂ
#2 Philadelphia prepares for PopeÂ
The Public Record 20-03-2014
#1 Brady Fights for JobsÂ
#2 Sowing Seeds for Decent Housing
#5 Staten, Sr. Charitable Golf Classic to Honor Alan Parham
#3 Democrats Face Busy Primary Challenges
#4 Bruce Crawley Named To Hall of Fame
The paper, in this case, seems much less sensationalist than broadcast news. Also, despite the televised news being a local station, much less of the stories seemed focused on local issues. For example, the print news had a story on housing and local work protests, which are very clearly set locally and tied to the residents of Philadelphia. Broadcast news had many stories on world or national events. However, in in terms of getting the news, getting information, broadcast is quicker and could be thought of as superior practically speaking. Print provides much that may be more relevant to me personally though and the advantages of broadcast could be had through the internet too.Â
Tabloid and sensationalist pieces are a personal dislike of mine. The broadcast news seemed to run more of things type of pieces than the paper by a far margin. Tabloid pieces on celebrities perpetuate ill moral ideals, distract us from more relevant topics, and invade the personal lives of said celebrities. Sensationalism also adds needless noise to sift through to find important pieces and often acts to misinform or redirect. The higher ranked pieces on my list were relevant, though provoking, and supported.
As I mentioned before, many of the pieces I ranked higher on my lists had some kind of impact on the local community or myself. Even those without a direct impact or effect, do trickle down to my area eventually, the democratic primary story being a good example of an indirect effect. In addition to that, I believe some stories may have an effect simply by their thought provoking or mind opening effect.Â
Outside of these two small samples, I do notice some mutual topics between print and broadcast from personal experience. The rising rate of competition of college admissions is something I've seen both in and outside of print. While job and housing have been addressed in broadcast news, I find that they're normal less in depth than papers and, more or less, running around screaming that the sky is falling. The tabloid type pieces are seemingly exclusive to broadcast; as we've discussed before, print is a more of a "pure" form of journalism and it's possibly such journalists see themselves above such things or know their readership is less interested than the viewers of broadcast news. National and world events seem to make the front page (and the equivalent of broadcast) in either case, though the treatment may differ.Â
