chosehumanity (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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fandomhigh2010-08-11 09:28 am
chosehumanity) wrote in fandomhigh2010-08-11 09:28 am
Entry tags:
Teevee for Beginners, Wednesday
"Humanity has always tried to keep in contact," Mitchell started. He looked more cheerful, somehow, like something had relit the fire in his eyes that had gone out over the past few weeks, and especially the past weekend. In fact, he seemed downright cheerful, smiling more. "At least within the tribe. Sharing stories isn't really about fiction, it's about sharing a world, about finding a connection. And there's very little that connects us more than the events that go on all around us."
He was back in the classroom with the couches, but he'd kept the bigger flatscreen TV for this one. "Newspapers started around the 19th century," he said, "In the early 20th century, radio absorbed that task. And as with most things that happen on the radio, eventually, it winds up on TV, although it loaned elements of film newsreels as well. While all the other formats were still barely a blink in a broadcaster's eye, TV news rose up in the late 1940s and became an essential part of the media as we know it. You saw CNN last week: that's the result of sixty years of broadcast news."
"But let's go back in time a bit," he said, gesturing at the TV. "1953. Queen Elizabeth the Second was coronated. It was broadcast by the BBC and meant a breakthrough for news on television: over twenty million people tuned in to watch her Majesty receive her crown. There had never been that many viewers of one program in the UK before. A record amount of TV sets was sold that month, and now the British, too, longed for a regular newscast. It wouldn't be until 1954 until the British had news, but by then the BBC had already acquired a reputation that would last them for decades."
"It took them a time to tussle about the format. You can essentially break the history of TV news down to a couple of blocks of inventions and changes. It's sufficient to say that there was a lot of experimenting in the early days; today, everything is much more streamlined. News is widespread now - the dangers lie in who's controlling it, in the spin of it. What they don't say can mean more than what they do, the items they decide to run and those they don't."
He smiled at the class. "I want you all to present something newsworthy out of your life," he said, "Like a news broadcast. And then I want the rest of you lot to discuss what their spin is."
He was back in the classroom with the couches, but he'd kept the bigger flatscreen TV for this one. "Newspapers started around the 19th century," he said, "In the early 20th century, radio absorbed that task. And as with most things that happen on the radio, eventually, it winds up on TV, although it loaned elements of film newsreels as well. While all the other formats were still barely a blink in a broadcaster's eye, TV news rose up in the late 1940s and became an essential part of the media as we know it. You saw CNN last week: that's the result of sixty years of broadcast news."
"But let's go back in time a bit," he said, gesturing at the TV. "1953. Queen Elizabeth the Second was coronated. It was broadcast by the BBC and meant a breakthrough for news on television: over twenty million people tuned in to watch her Majesty receive her crown. There had never been that many viewers of one program in the UK before. A record amount of TV sets was sold that month, and now the British, too, longed for a regular newscast. It wouldn't be until 1954 until the British had news, but by then the BBC had already acquired a reputation that would last them for decades."
"It took them a time to tussle about the format. You can essentially break the history of TV news down to a couple of blocks of inventions and changes. It's sufficient to say that there was a lot of experimenting in the early days; today, everything is much more streamlined. News is widespread now - the dangers lie in who's controlling it, in the spin of it. What they don't say can mean more than what they do, the items they decide to run and those they don't."
He smiled at the class. "I want you all to present something newsworthy out of your life," he said, "Like a news broadcast. And then I want the rest of you lot to discuss what their spin is."