Wheres the Watchdog

Wheres the Watchdog

A news source, for exzmple WHAS, is supposed to be a channle or a website or a newspaper etc, where citizens can go to be informed about what is going on in the news. Part of that is poloticsand seeing what the canidates are up to, what their motives are, how they avt. WHAS recently has not been providing their viewers with enough informaition about canidates/polotics for the viewers to be failiarized with them, therefore they ae not keeping up or watching people in power which breaks one of the seven yardsticks that is journalism. For example, there was just a huge election and WHAS may have done a few stories through the course of the season but not enough to cover the standards to meet the fact that they were a watchdog.

Where’s the civil contribution?

On the night time 6:00 WHAS news that is broadcasted on they break civil contribution. The news source that was  just previously mentioned rarely ever has any polotical stories, ranging from local to international. This disservice to the viewers of the network breaks the yardstick that is Civil Contribution. Civil Contribution is reporting on the government, from all levels, ranging from mayor of a town, or a head of a school board to the President, and our national government. Because of the lack of to no political stories WHAS has broken civil contribution. There is no coverage of any level of government officials.

Making the important interesting on WHAS 6:00 news

If one were to watch the 6:00 new on WHAS they would see that the journalist report on average a maximum of 8 stories, most with minimal to no relavence, importance or, newsworthiness. WHAS makes the interesting important. The reports on this news source have no signifgance or newsworthy substance which is how the completley contradict the yardstick that clearly states that the journalist are responsible for making the important interesting. (They are making the interesting important. An example is a story that was about kittens being born. This story did not effect anyone, nor was it newsworthy, but WHAS made this interesting story sound important.

Proportion Problems

Proportion Problems

WHAS 6:00 news is a 30 minute show. Now viewers are not expecting a recap of the week in detail in that time, but what viewers do expect from a news source is to be informed of important and relavent stories that cover a vass majority of different catagories of news. WHAS fails to meet these standards in their 6:00 news show. 12 minutes of the show on average is dedicated to commercials, 10 is dedicated to weather and sports. That leaves 8 mintues remaining, which are split into about 4, 2 minute stories, the majority dedicated to crime and spurraatically there might be a social interest story. This breaks the principle of Inclusiveness becuase there is no proportion in the types of stories.

Lack of Newsworthiness and Inclusivness on WHAS

Lack of Newsworthiness and inclusivness on WHAS

Everyone loves a few clips of non-newsworthiness, whether it be a dog jumping through a hoop or the crazy video that is going viral, so the question then becomes when does it become too much. One of the 7 yardsticks is newsworthiness. The questions that newsworthiness compels us to ask ourselves are “Is it core or peripheral?” and “Will it have a lasting affect on people.” Recently on WHAS the fluff, aka, unimportant information, like celebrity gossip, has been way out of proportions in comparison to other news sources. Not only has the entirety of 6:oo news show deprive viewers of relavence, importance and news altogether, but on average fluff takes up 1/3 of the entire television broadcasted show, and the majority of the time has 15-30 stories online! 

The overload of fluff on WHAS breaks newsworthiness becuase, the information in the fluff news, is not core in any way, nor is it peripheral. Also the stories that you will find under fluff have no lasting effect on people, becuase they are not important. No information that could possibly be catagorized as fluff, can ever truley change the way a mass of people live their lives.

In addition, another way that the amount of fluff breaks the rules of newsworthiness is that there is no lasting effect on people. If a fluff story were to affect someone it would be a shortlived spurt of adoration, or maybe humor, but those emotions, will not have a lasting fact on a viewer.