Network Discussion Prompts

Post #9

Network Discussion Prompts

In Network, programming the news is taken to the extreme. To what degree do you feel the news is programmed in reality? Support your answer with details and examples.

Nowadays, news is programmed in a sensationalist way in order to attract more viewers. Just reporting the news (if there is any) won't generate ratings as effectively as reporting news items with an emotional twist.

A perfect example will be the “Bed Intruder” news report about an intended raped in Huntsville, Alabama. They presented this news coverage in a total sensationalist way. This caused the news report to turn out into a viral video mocking Antoine Dodson, who was the victim’s brother, response of the facts.

Reporters often use meaningless one-dimensional statistics; for example, "Texas leads the nation in big-rig accidents." (That's a quote from a recent story designed to drum up support for some new state law.) That makes it sound like the truck drivers on Texas highways are more dangerous than anywhere else. But Texas has more highway mileage than most other states, and lots of really bad drivers on the road.

But there are more subtle components of media sensationalism that the average viewer hardly notices, at least consciously. Major market stations spend millions of dollars every year on futuristic news sets, lighting, catchy music, sound effects, visual effects, character generators and various kinds of electronic graphics. TV newscasts are staged and choreographed as thoroughly as a small-town play. In the old days, a middle-aged white man sat behind a plain old desk and reported the news. That's not enough in today's TV market. The news team sits behind a desk and reads whatever comes up on the TelePrompter. They rarely use words that are longer than three syllables. The high-priced news readers are really good at putting on a phony "concerned" look at just the right time. And if you'll notice, they are usually just stating the obvious, and only rarely does anyone speak on a single subject for more than five or ten seconds.

Arthur Jensen the corporate CEO, tells Howard that, “The world is a business … It has been since man crawled out of the slime.” What are your opinions and impressions of that speech, delivered near the end of the film by Jensen, played by Ned Beatty?  

I totally agree with Jensen’s point of view that “The world is a business … It has been since man crawled out of the slime” because it exactly explains what is happening to news reporting nowadays.  To one is a secret that social media has crashed TV news reporting.  So in order to gain back their audiences, and strike back up their TV ratings, news producers have turned news into a business.  These have turned journalism and TV news production into a huge controlled business, instead of a clean, informative, and ethical corporation.  News need to be partial in order to inform their audiences newsworthy pieces that could help improve society in one way or another. But if becomes a business, it is not going to inform what the people wants. Instead, it will inform what it profitable for its owners.