IV.

The Role of Technology

Technology assisted the transition from rigidly separated news and current affairs broadcasting to modern news programming that has abundant material. Difficult-to-use wax discs for recording interviews and reporters’ dispatches gave way on radio to manageable magnetic tape. On television, cheap, easily edited video tape replaced expensive film that had to be developed before viewers could see it. Improved telephones and land-line circuits from distant studios to the news transmission studio encouraged programmes to use their own reporters instead of standard news agency copy. Cumbersome, costly outside broadcast vehicles—mobile studios—sent to the scene of only the biggest stories were superseded by smaller news broadcast vehicles, saloon cars with radio transmission equipment. These can travel more readily, giving radio reporters more opportunities to beam their news directly into the news studio and, if necessary, live into homes and offices. Electronic news gathering (ENG) in television allowed its reporters to do the same with pictures and sound. Communications satellites also improved the quality of pictures and sound from distant places. More news was reported more quickly.

Portable telephones, lightweight video cameras, and portable satellite transponders (devices that both receive and send out signals) have further increased quantity and speed. Reporters send pictures and their account of the facts directly to satellite and on to studios in London, Washington, Paris, Sydney, and all points on the globe. Reporting the news from any location can now be instant.

As a result, editors of news programmes have many more stories to choose from and much more material to illustrate them. Editors first decide which events they would like covered so that reporters with cameras and sound equipment are allocated to them. Editors also receive material on events they did not know were happening or were going to happen. For their programmes, they decide what to use, in what form, how they are to be edited, to what length, in what order, and whether the reports should be live or recorded. They also decide which stories are most important or most interesting, and how their locality, their country, their region, and the world will be presented.

With more news to use, radio and television have many more news programmes than in days when news travelled slowly. Some stations have news all the time, 24 hours a day. The explosion of news will continue. Events in many parts of the world are under-reported or not reported at all, sometimes because they are too remote, sometimes because restrictive governments, eager to hide problems, suppress information and deter reporters. However, political change, the demand for news, and easy technology combine to break down barriers and to encourage programme producers to explore more and more events in more and more parts of the world.

Some critics say that television often uses pictures simply because they exist or because they are exciting, not because they are important. They argue that editors neglect more important events for which there are no pictures or where the pictures lack action. Others see the situation in a different light: the growth of news means that the world is better informed and, while many events reported are relatively trivial, there are many serious news programmes attending to many significant events.