A Fine Mess o' Press - Project Proposal

Group Members: Ayesha Zafar, Shirin Sodhi, Sumran Bhan, Gobi T.

Problem description:

A literal definition of “Sensationalism” is: Deliberately provoking interest by including material that is exciting, shocking and salacious (especially in journalism).
Journalism ethics are a set of ethical codes that a journalist must follow in the procedure of news reporting/broadcasting.
We are going to look at how in a new age of media; sensationalism has taken over or coincided with journalistic ethics in the broadcast of TV news. We will, for this purpose, compare news broadcasts on CBC and CTV. To prove our point we will consider certain traits that will distinguish sensationalism from journalistic ethics. These traits are:
Excessive use of exaggerated language / terminology
Severity in use of graphical images
Repetition of news broadcast (number of times a same piece of news is shown / with the same or different language each time / if new images are added or previous ones modified or talked about more etc.)
Whether it violates notions of social decency; displaces socially significant stories; and is seen as a new-sprung drift into excessiveness.
The essence of sensationalism vs. journalism ethics lies in understanding:
a) Sensationalism as a branch of journalism that has cut off from it and formed a separate identity of it’s own.
b) Why sensationalism often has a negative connotation attached to it
c) How a piece of news loses it’s value and core to sensationalism
d) Whether sensationalism is due to ownership issues and/or possesses other bias such as different culture, background, race etc.
e) Whether and/or to what extent the globalization/advancement in technology and convergence play a role in sensationalism (referring to an exaggerated, filtered and adulterated news that reaches the audience but is superficial)
This problem is interesting because it affects the audience in a very subtle and a discreet manner but has an overall detrimental impact. It is interesting to observe how the content of broadcasting has changed dramatically over the last few years. The vantage point of this problem suggests that media / broadcasters lay more emphasis on news that will “sell more” rather than something that will “benefit more.” Often the media creates hype about trivial things and ignores news that may indeed interest or be of value to the audience. Hence, we will look into the details and consider the broadcasting trends of CBC vs. CTV. We will analyze the various factors that 1) are of importance to these channels individually 2) influence the difference in broadcast on the two channels 3) the degree of sensationalism and journalistic ethics on both.

Key Determining Forces:
There are social, cultural, economic and political forces that drive television broadcast media. These same forces drive the problems of the media. The information providers of the media have a certain rule of ethics that they follow and have certain functions that they fulfill. These rules and functions are not legally binding but are principles of the social group to which they belong (media). Journalists use the ethics to guide them in their research and presentation. Free speech, objectivity, independence, credibility and accurateness are just a few of those principles. Their function is interpretation, surveillance, value transmission and entertainment. Most broadcasters fulfill their function however some give more emphasis to one aspect than the others. This is where the problems occur. The watchdog role of the owners and the editors’ gives them power to determine what they will transmit. They are also the ones to decide what their role in society will be. Often the ownership will let other factors (besides the social conduct of media) lead them to make decisions -- cultural, economic and political forces. The demographics of media ownership do not represent the demographic of the world population. Most of the media it is owned by rich, Caucasian males and this can be a source of problems. When the people that filter the news do not represent the population, their motives and biases can lead them to making wrong decisions. Even if the bias does not play a part in the actual presentation of a story, it plays a part in the selection of stories. When people, who have identical views, and when certain stories are given preference over others it creates sensationalism.

Applied analysis:
Media is a huge industry and is not susceptible to easy reformations or redemption. The survival of a democracy rests on a free flow of information and an informed electorate and if sensationalism reigns for any reason (private interests of the elites etc.) the disruption of information may have dramatic effects on everyone (who is part of a society). The cost in credibility is much more than compared to the dollars earned in revenue. Hence, efforts need to be made at a large scale to improve things that are persisting and are not of any real value to the public. The reporters alone stand barely a chance to reform anything. The business pressures from the corporate make it almost impossible to produce quality journalism. Few alternatives could include:
Avoiding deliberate distortion / exaggeration of news content, photos, videos, (personal) interviews etc.
Discerning between advocacy and news reporting. Analysis and commentary should be labeled and should not misrepresent facts. There should be a clear distinction between news and advertising.
Avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived and remain free of associations and activities that may compromise integrity and damage credibility or lead to chains of amplification resulting in sensationalism.
For journalists to learn how to manage the editorial process amidst the growing encroachment of commercial interests in broadcast television news
These alternative solutions can be implemented by putting into practice thorough research about any piece of news and representing the truth, as it is, when broadcasting / publishing the same. Bias can be removed by giving all members of society / consumers of media an equal chance to raise their voice and put forth their opinions i.e. abundant choices for feedback. This may help improve the perception of “sensationalism” since a negative connotation is usually attached to it.

Project Format:
Our group topic is based on a review of news stories. Because of this we want to do a comparison of the coverage and an essay on the findings. This would be most likely being in the format of a website or possibly a power point presentation.
With the website, we can use visual images and video clips to make our project more attractive to the audience. This also helps us explain our information through visual stimulations, which will allow people to comprehend the information clearly and fairly quickly. This website will be a useful way of showing our creativity and will help us explain our project to the audience in an easy viewable format.
Techniques:
The technique of content analysis helps to fit the information in a model form. This model form is easy to be categorized and thus inferences are made on the selected work. For our project we will measure, observe, count and record CTV and CBC’s news broadcast according to following categories:
1) Graphic details attached news
2) Repetition of celebrity or pop culture news
3) Headline news and its importance for public
4) Language used
The last point will help us to analyze new in context of Discourse Analysis. We will try to sort out the words according to intensity associated with them. For this reason members would do no subjective evaluation of words, but the intensity will be measured by the lexicon meanings.


Sources:
1) Report Card 2004 by Canadian Media Research Consortium. Visited website
<< http://www.cmrcccrm.ca/english/reportcard2004/23.html>> on October 15, 2005

2) “What Bleeds Leads” by James Walker of PressEthic - Class blog of Department of Journalism at New York University. Visited website
<< http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/pressethic/node/23>> at October 16, 2005

3) “Sensationalism dismantles media’s integrity” by Dan Macklin. Article from Michigan State University’s magazine. Visited website at <<http://www.statenews.com/editionssummer99/052799/op_col1.html>> at October 16, 2005

4) “Explicating sensationalism in television news: content and the bells and whistles of form” by Maria Elizabeth Grabe , Shuhua Zhou , Brooke Barnett. Visited website << http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=5000938283>> on November 1st 2005

Future research will be done by reading articles from the bibliography of “Our Unfree Press” and “New Media Reader.” Furthermore archives at websites of CTV and CBC will be used to look for facts and figures. Journals / periodicals will be consulted and informal interviews, about what people think and how they look at this problem, may be conducted.