News Media Analysis - Essay Example

News media analysis The news watched was the Morning Click on Fox News by Harris Faulkner. There was no presenter for sports and weather in the morning news cast. The set up of the news room was quite simple with minimal view of equipments that allowed the viewers to focus on the very god looking anchor and her guests. Two guests were present to provide insights into the day’s political issues of Latino and the women’s vote in the upcoming battle for the white house between president Obama and Mitt Romney. Present in the studio was Sue Kelly, a former Republican congresswoman from New York and Chuck Rocha, an executive at the Hispanic caucus joining the discussion from the Fox news Washington DC bureau via satellite. The audience was also involved with their input made through a live chat on the anchor’s Twitter page (foxnews.com). From the onset, the presentation was all inclusive with the guest granted equal chances to express their opinions on the Democrat – Republican divide. The target audience were adult voting Americans with guests discussing issues related to the upcoming US presidential elections. Being a morning show, the stories were too political with very minimal informative material. My opinion of a morning show is that it should get comprehensively informative with highlights of major news at the start of the bulletin and later focus on core topic of discussion. This was not the case with politics being the sole top of discussion. With several other issues touching and of significance to the audience totally ignored. With regards to the political ‘target audience’, the newscast did half justice. Evaluation into what would woo the Latino and women voters was well disused with the guests providing comprehensive insights into the task ahead for the presidential candidates if they were to win these two constituencies. Sue Kelly who was representing the voice of the Republican Party and women voters provided a comprehensive statistical breakdown of the performance of women in congress over the years in relation to the GOP and the Democratic Party which was of only of intersect to find out, but also left viewers more informed. Chuck on the other hand made contributions that provided viewers with a chance to take a journey through the mind of a Latino voter and as it turned out, immigration was a major determinant of the voting patterns of the Hispanics. The broad cast was particularly very long with the political discussion lasting over 30 minutes which is not proper for a morning show that should always provide very brief and informative insights into the day’s main events and leave the viewers with the urge for more. That was not the case in this broadcast. The provision of viewers input through a live chat was of particular significance as it provided the all inclusiveness required in a political debate. There were five commercials and these were very appropriate as they all targeted an adult audience. Commercials on fitness were particularly relevant given the time of broadcast. The commercials were on fitness equipments, breakfast food products, cars and travel with one advert on a transatlantic airline. These commercials served the intended purpose of reaching the target audience since viewers of the show are adults who make purchase decisions on what their families have for breakfast, their fitness issues, travel options and the brand of car to purchase. The commercials were however few given the duration of the broadcast. There should have been numerous ads during the political discussion to break the monotony of argument that went on. The informality of the set was equally unappealing; the anchor conversed quite informally with very inappropriate interruptions that were mostly personal as the debate went on at some point telling one of the guests, Mr. Chuck about where and how young she was in 19988 when the later made reference to the year to provide historical information on the past administrations’ actions on the issue of immigration ( Biagi, p88).. In as much as happy talk is concerned, there was too much of it, especially from the anchor and host, Harris Faulkner. Due to the magnitude of the political issues under discussion that touched on women and Hispanics, there should have been several moments of seriousness to provide emphasis on the weight of matters debated. Initially the happy talk was interesting and seemed to have made the guests feel more at home as they tackled the issues under debate but as the discussion went on and the sow became absolutely happy talk, the initial gains of the ‘happy concept’ were eroded and the whole discussion did not appear weighty as it should have. There was a lot of distraction in the broadcast with the anchor failing to balances between reading the message from the live chat and paying attention to the guests. At one point the anchor, Harris Faulkner totally disconnected with the guest in studs and got consumed into her Twitter page to the point that the contributors appeared to have felt uncomfortable. In a discussion, the moderator should pay as much attention to the guests to enable the seamless flow of the debate since most of the issues arising from the talk form the foundation for further questions and deeper insights into the topic. As the host, she should have found proper balance between guests, herself and live chat contributions by pausing discussions at intervals to read out inputs from the live chat. Doing all the three at the same time created confusion and removed the element of flavour from the show (Barnett, p 57). The newscast in my opinion, failed to live up to the objective of informing the audience by first being too long, monotonous and having unnecessary distractions. As an informative morning news broadcast, the show should the objective of provide optimal insights into the major events within the shortest time. Its target audience are adults who are either working or travelling and therefore the intended information should be passed with utmost precision (Allan, p63). I would therefore not allocate time for watching this show again. A morning brief from CNN would be just fine with me. The following values that guide news articles should have been adhered to in the Fox morning news cast: Timeliness: this value requires that what most recently occurred becomes the news and therefore the discussion should have focused on stories other than the Obama Romney tussle, for example the legality issue surrounding the extraction of a child’s DNA without the knowledge the parents that was headlining at the time of this broadcast, should have been given emphasis besides the political debate (Fuller, p112). Impact: This covers issues relating to significance of the item which in this case was the women and Hispanic votes in the upcoming election which in as much as it was significant, should have been founded on the latest opinion poll related to the topic discussed. The guests in the show made references to polls that were conducted much earlier which should not have been the case. Conflict: The divide between Democrats and Republicans should have been fiercer in the debate. The anchor did not seem to stir the historical conflicts between the two sides to add an element of tussle to the debate instead let an otherwise political debate run quite smoothly. Bizarre findings: during the discussion, the anchor should have presented facts or pieces of information that are unexpected but factual to stir up the debate. Statistical information on women and American leadership that was presented by Sue Kelly was not unusual enough to attract the required attention and it should have been Faulkner. To table some controversial data that indeed makes women and Hispanics get drawn to the talk. Human Interest: This was well covered however not comprehensively with regards to how the ongoing political competition personally affects the two groups. The Hispanics had immigration coming out as their main are of concern while women did not bring much when their representative in Sue Kelly talked of gas prices and the economy that actually affects every American, women included. Conclusion A critical review of the broadcast against the core values on news reveals that the bulleting was deficient in many core values. The morning show should live up to the objective of providing precise information to viewers at the start of the day to help them make decisions regarding significant issues that shape a day as they go about their business. But being Fox News, we cannot know of their objectives for this how having been regarded as one of the most controversial news stations in America. Works Cited Allan, Stuart. News Culture. Maidenhead: Open University Press, 2004. Print. Barnett, George A. Advances in Persuasion. Greenwich, Conn. [u.a.: Ablex Publ. [u.a., 1997. Print. Biagi, Shirley. Media/impact: An Introduction to Mass Media. Australia: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2012. Print. Fuller, Jack. News Values: Ideas for an Information Age. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997. Print. http://live.foxnews.com/ Read More