Laura

News has been around for hundreds of years.  News has come a long way from simple posts on citizens’ doors and people riding through town yelling the latest news.  A variety of mediums have become available to audiences over the past hundred years.  News became available for the first time electronically through newsreels.  Newsreels were first shown in 1909 in France.  A newsreel was shown before a film and displayed current events.

Newsreels were just the beginning of electronic news.  Radio broadcasted current events.  Radio news became popular during 1920.  The radio was a fast and efficient way of delivering news to an audience.  Radio broadcasting was seen as a threat to newspapers; radio stations and newspapers competed heavily.  Radio networks agreed to only report for 10 minutes of news per day.  Radio did not have the intention of diminishing the newspaper sales.  Just like any other business, the radio needed to look out for itself and draw in the biggest audience possible.  News was important to radio networks, because news created a bigger audience.  The radio stations found the “loophole” to their agreement with the newspapers.  The radio networks reported news for 10 minutes per day, but also discussed the news on-air, which is known as commentaries.  People listened to the radio for news, especially breaking news.  However, radio did not affect newspaper sales; people still purchased newspapers.

Radio could be reported live.  World broadcasting was made available to wide audiences.  News was the main focus of radio networks until the 1960’s.  Television became more popular and radio began to provide more music.  However, some radio stations remained strictly news stations and have become very successful.  Radio was still used for news and television was used for entertainment.

Television audiences began to grow in the 1950’s and newscasts were shown through the newest medium (television).  Journalists reported the events occurring all over the world.  The events recorded for television were not always live most were filmed and some were even pseudo events (events that never would have happened if the television crews were not there to record them).

Television was able to broadcast news quickly and efficiently.  Television news broadcasts have become more reliable over the past years.  Audiences of television news, as well as other mediums, wanted news at the tips of their fingers as it was occurring. News on demand became available with the invention of the internet.  The fastest medium is the internet.  Live broadcasts can be done, reviewing of past news broadcasts, and newspapers were also made available on the internet.  News can be updated quickly and it is accessible to very large audiences.  News can be heard/seen on the internet over and over again on the internet through video on demand.

With all of the news that is readily available to an audience the broadcasting companies must appeal to an audience.  One way of getting an audience is to be a biased broadcasting company.  Most people are either liberal or conservative thinkers and therefore they are more prone to listen/watch a news program that has the same views as them.  News is used to provide facts, biased or unbiased.  News is important because it delivers the facts, but today the news is also used for entertainment purposes.  Audiences want to be entertained through all mediums of the news.