Broadcast News – Case Study Analysis of News Stories

Using a variety of news websites, choose a minimum of 6 current news stories to use as case studies. Below is what you need to do with each story – and in as much detail as possible:-

• Give a summary of the news story
• What kind of news story is this? – Is it a new development or a continuation of a longer-running story?
• When did this news story break?
• Why do you think that this event is news worthy? – Which news values are relevant here?
• What do you believe is the institution’s agenda behind reporting this story?
• Is biased reporting evident? – In what way?
• How do you think this information has been gathered? – Local/National/International correspondent, expert opinion, eyewitness statements, news agency?
• Are there any images/video with this news report? – How do these impact on the way the news story is recieved by the audience?
• How are the relevant social groups featured within this news story represented?
• Is there any interaction between the institution and the audience? – I.e. Opinion poll, audience email/text responses to story, any other means for audience to voice opinion/interact with this news story?
• Is the same event reported on other news sources? – How does this report differ to the first source you found?

Try a variety of news sources…  here are some to get you started – BBC News, Sky News, Reuters.co.uk, Bloomberg, NewsNow, CNN, Fox News, ITN News, Euro News.

You should either post these case studies on your blogs (those of you who have them!) or submit on paper… but this is expected to be completed, and is a prime resource of revision come exam time! (See exam countdown clock on Renier’s blog…. tick-tock-tick-tock..!!).