Television Transforms the News

Television has transformed the news ever since the medium was created.  Radio gave the news its voice but television has restored the news’ face.  The news we see on television is a person telling the audience what has happened, which seems like an old way of communicating information.  The story behind this news is pretty complex.  The news we see on T.V. is moving pictures being transformed in and out of electronic signals using a rotating disk with spiral perforations (Stephens 245-246).  This form of communication had been introduced in the 1920’s but then really perfected by radio networks later on.  In 1941 CBS was now broadcasting two newscasts a day (Stephens 246).  An initial problem producers ran into was how to fill the screen.  This included the person on the screen and his role and what visuals would be used to portray news in general.

The development of the television had to be put on hold due to the occurrence of the Second World War.  In 1949 it picked up again with Kraft Television Theater and Howdy Doody.  CBS TV now had anchor Douglas Edwards while NBC News had John Cameron Swayze.  The news in this era consisted of “talking heads” giving the world the news.  This began to transform in the fifties when CBS and NBC began producing their own film reports.  Anchors began to go out of studio for stories while eyewitness narration was now provided.  This was when the real power of the medium proved to be.  The power came to reality in the sixties when Kennedy defeated Nixon on television, Lee Harvey Oswald was shot on television, protesters were seen on camera, and everything could now be seen on camera.  Television began to attract success and that of new audiences with the news much like mediums before it.  Once T.V.s became affordable the news was now made available to millions across the nation to a diverse audience.  We live in a world of mediated reality and the television has extended our access to news.  With this, it has made us more reliable on television news and less on us to tell our own news.  We borrow facts and steal opinions, but newsgathering has been taken to all whole different level with the television (Stephens).