Summary:
Analyzes the difference in news coverage between private corporate owned stations and government supported stations. Focuses on station coverage of the Bali bombing.
In television news broadcasting there are two main styles, commercial and government. The commercial stations are 7, 9 and 10, and they are rating driven, which means that for most stories they focus on the area that would appeal to the most viewers so they can get the ratings, and thus the money. Whereas the government funded channel, channel 2 is not driven by ratings because they do not need the income, so they report the more factual, but less interesting angles, which are normally more informative and less bias.
On Monday, the day after the Bali bombing, the commercial stations tended to show stories that are more likely to keep your attention, like stories that focus on the families of the victims. The ABC on the other hand focused on giving it's viewers an in depth analysis of the situation and the repercussions and not trying to draw in ratings with fabrication and large, unnecessary words.
There were also similarities; like they were both sympathetic toward the families of the Australians killed both of their reports included comments from key Australian political figures.
On 7, 9 and 10 the reports on Tuesday were still based on Bali, they had more reports from Victims families, and they all ran extended programs in another attempt to get ratings, they showed computer generated reenactments of the bombing and were beginning to suggest that this may be a terrorist attack. Channel 2 again stuck with their very calm, and unbiased reporting, they interviewed more political figures, both Australian and Indonesian in order to get both sides of the story. They, like the commercial stations interviewed victim's families, but the reporting was less emotive and moving.
By Wednesday the initial shock was wearing off, and the commercial stations were trying to milk the situation for another day, but they ran out of things to report, because there was no new information. They reverted back to normal viewing, showing stories on the other main Australian story, the droughts. The ABC was still reporting on Bali as well, but with the lack of new information, they were still interviewing political figures, this time it was the foreign minister, Alexander Downer. "Did Australia know, were we warned"" these were the two questions that bought about a whole new angle to the Bali bombing incident. These questions put the minister into defensive, which gave all of the viewers the impression that Australia did know, and failed to warn its residents.
By Thursday, the commercial stations considered the Bali story no longer newsworthy, so they returned completely to normal viewing, showing stories on free land, pill popping, ad cheap clothing. The ABC, not concerned by the percentage of the viewing audience they had kept going with the Bali story. They were now trying to but the blame somewhere, and linking it to Iraq; they showed John Howard announcing that Australia would support any military actions taken by the USA. Their reporting still remained unbiased, serious and relevant, they were trying to get answers, not entertain an audience.
From the evidence shown above, it is logical to suggest that the ABC's news coverage, although not as widely watched is far superior to that of the commercial stations, as far as getting the facts from a neutral point of view goes, but the commercial stations although not always reporting the complete truth have more interesting reports, that usually take the side of who they see as the victim.
This is the complete article, containing 572 words
(approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page).
