How to watch TV NEWS - Essay Example

With children spending endless hours in front of the TV sets, fears have been expressed about the adverse impact of sensational news and the accompanying gory video clips, on tender minds in their formative years. Are these fears justified? Do children watch TV news as much as it is made out or do they watch something else? Are the TV channels alone to be blamed or should the parents also share some responsibility? These are some of the questions that come to one’s mind when dealing with the question - What if anything, should be done about the negative effects of TV news on children?

Authors Postman, N. and Powers, S. (1992)1 bring out interesting facts about TV watching in their book, “How to Watch TV News.” They refer to the several research works done by Robert Kubey and Mihay Csikszentmihalyi who concluded that, “…television makes they were in before watching television.” Here they were talking generally about the grown up viewers. TV watching is close to an addiction (Ed Vitagliano, 2002)2. People of all age groups simply cannot resist watching, surfing channels all the time.

TV watching has spawned new words to describe the innate content and the lazy viewer: ‘idiot box and couch potato.’ Not very complimentary indeed! By contrast, children up to the age of about 15 years must be enjoying the programs since they spend about 30 percent of waking hours in front of TV sets, as pointed out by Postman et al. But of course, it is a different issue that they rarely choose to watch TV news by their own choice. TV news programs are real and live coverage of events, especially events of human interest i.e., events that keep the viewers hooked to the screens for minute-by-minute developments as they occur.

These are 24x7 programs, with special episodes for primetime watching recapitulating all the gory details of the day’s events in capsules. It is the viewership ratings that drive the programs’