Immediacy Vs. depth.

Mainstream media and especially television and radio are very good at bringing breaking news. A TV-channel can cover an event, as it is happening, with just one cameraman at the scene. And TV-channels have many years of experience telling us when something worth paying attention to is happening. The perfect example of the impact of live news is, of course, CNN’s coverage of the 9/11 attacks.

Immediacy is one of the best reasons to follow live news on TV and radio. An argument often heard about the advantages of TV compared to newspapers is that, what you read in the newspaper is already old news when you pick it up. Another advantage of TV and radio is that you can do other things while listening to them. You can turn on the radio in the morning and basically it will tell you that the world is still turning/burning while you brush your teeth. No effort or time involved.

Live broadcasts from breaking events always draw many viewers and listeners. However, often times, when an issue is no longer considered breaking news the media will let go of it, without following up on the situation. This tendency creates a faulty image of the world for audiences who get all their news from TV. This is especially true for negative news coverage. Since much of what is covered by mainstream news focuses on the negative, people start to see the world around them as a very scary place. And of course the world can be a scary place. But the media often forgets to tell the positive stories that do occur. And I am not talking about a cute short story about a police officer rescuing a cat from a tree, at the end of the program.

Newspapers, however, do a much better job of making sure to cover as many aspects of an event as possible. After the 9/11 attacks, newspapers told the readers about the rebuilding and how people were coping with their losses, while TV slowly moved on to the next breaking story. And this is just an example of the differences in coverage. Short term coverage is the main focus of TV while newspapers take a long term approach.

Luckily with the emergence of the web as a place to get your news and report about the world as you see it, audiences have an abundance of news sources available to them. However, the old lady who does not have a computer still has only two options: TV/radio and newspapers. And if she chooses only to follow the news on TV it is understandable that she is scared to leave her house.