News Gathering b6h6l

News gathering and transmission

News gathering  Human and technological component  Human: the vast amount of work that journalists and

other people do to gather news  The editorial staff – reporters and other journalists in news organization  BBC has 2,000 journalists. 41/48 bureaux are outside Britain, in India the scenario is the opposite  Reporters get information, develop a story and transmit it to the news organisation

News transmission  Kalpana Sharma (1986) adds: “Technology, I believe,

should not change the focus of journalism. Whatever the form – print, television, radio, internet – what matters is the perspective of the practitioners of the trade. If, as journalists, we think our job is merely to relay bits of information to the general public, we are only a little better than „stenographers‟. If, on the other hand, we believe that what we write can make a difference to people‟s lives, then regardless of the technology we use, we can find ways of doing just that.”

News transmission  News agencies used to transmit information through

carrier pigeons  Today, Times of India has something called Speed News – reporters file a news brief with their mobile phones through a id.  To an extent, technology has changed the nature of news

News transmission – historical development  Wooden printing press invented in China – 305 CE  Newspapers appeared in Europe in 1450  Telegraph invented in 1793 by Claude Chappe,

 Copying machine patent procured by Thomas Alva Edison in 1876, USA  Radio signals sent across the Atlantic by Marconi in 1902

News transmission – historical development  1897 nascent television technology  1950s television news really takes off  1980s cable and satellite communications evolved

 Internet (ARPANET) invented by the US

Department of Defence in 1969  IBM sells the first personal computer in 1981  World wide web becomes available in 1994

Printing technology  305 CE - The first wooden printing press – China  1450 moveable type, Johannes Gutenberg

considered to be a revolution in modern mass communication, even though China and Korea already used block printing and moveable types 100s of years earlier  1863 rotary printing press, linotype typesetting made printing process faster  Developments in photography aided the development of tabloids  Personal computers 1970s, followed by Desktop Publishing - DTP

Telegraph

Government of India Regret mahatma Gandhi was victim of shooting outrage Gandhiji expired yesterday evening cremation will take place Saturday 4 PM. Prime minister has broadcast Saturday 31st be observed as day of fasting and prayer suggest offices should close entirely and flags half mast from sunrise Government of India Regret mahatma Gandhi was victim of shooting outrage Gandhiji expired yesterday evening cremation will take place Saturday 4 PM. Prime minister has broadcast Saturday 31st be observed as day of fasting and prayer suggest offices should close entirely and flags half mast from sunrise

Telegraph  Archbishop languaging unprintably outleapt pulpit

outknocked vicar.”  “The Archbishop, using language entirely unfit for publication, immediately leapt from the pulpit and, savagely attacking the vicar, knocked him out.”  Cable message from London to Australia read “Obituary Jobson”. There were five Jobsons in Who‟s Who (reference publication of prominent people). Australian papers wiped out the entire clan.

Telegraph  1793 Claude Chappe developed telgraphic signals  By 1810, 29 French cities were connected to Paris  Initially it was just electricity ing over wire for

signalling purposes  1830 Cooke and Wheatstone used it as a warning system for the railways  1830, Samuel Morse developed a code – Morse Code – a system of long and short signals for the English alphabet. Used to send messages through the telegraph for a 100 years

Telegraph – how it works  Morse Code

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4aVNGkkON0

How is Morse Code clear? US military tutorial http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiag_xXaicQ&feat ure=related

Telegraph Gradually telegraph networks were developed across the world  In continental Europe – state-owned systems  In the UK and US private companies installed the telegraph lines  US initially had dozens of companies but later only Western Union remained on the scene. Today known for money transfer  The UK ed the Telegraph Act 1868 and nationalised telegraph infrastructure

Telegraphic news  Telegraph demand and usage – 4 quarters:

government, military, merchants, newspapers in 1844  High cost, there were four different types of charges for sending messages: urgent, full rate, press rate, deferred press rate. One word: four pence  Only after prices reduced did the general public begin to send telegrams  1920s Teleprinters – machines used to transmit and receive printed messages via telephone cables or radio systems. The machine would receive and print out the messages recd.

Telegraphic news  Domestic telegraph networks developed first, later       

international networks were set up 1831 The first submarine cable link across the English Channel connecting Britain to Europe 1854 and Algeria 1866 North America and Europe 1872 Australia and the UK via India 1873 in South America 1880 in eastern and southern Africa Early 1900s, whole globe telegraphically connected

Telegraph - impact  Separation of communication from

transportation – until the telegraph, even news was sent by train or by carrier pigeons  Social effects: collecting news from all over the country and news was shaped for a national audience, aiding national integration.  Also used to expand colonial empires in Africa, Asia, South America, North America

Telegraph - impact on news  Introduced first in American newspapers in 1844. for

100 years, it was the fastest means of relaying information  Timely relay of information of recent events. Helped launch major increases in daily circulations of n.p.  Telegraph also led to the evolution of the INVERTED PYRAMID style of news writing: most important information was written in the first two paragraphs. in case there was an interruption in cable transmission, imp info would have made it through

Telegraph – impact on news  Because of costs of transmission for individual n.p.

and lack of resources, a system of cooperation emerged: News Agencies.  Associated Press in 1846, USA – 6 large n.p.s  Havas Agency (AFP) in 1835, . For 10 years, it used carrier pigeons and railways to relay news  Reuters in Britain, others in , Russia, Italy, UK

television

I find television very educating. Everytime somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book. – Groucho Marx

Television technology  Essentially an image is scanned with a beam of light –

top to bottom and left to right – to produce an electrical signal. The electrical signal is amplified and transmitted by radio waves or along cables. The cathode ray tube reproduces the image at the receiver  TELSTAR satellite enabled transmission of transatlantic tv signals in 1962  Fiber optic cables in 1970s. Carries more data than copper wires. Today forms the core of cable and telephone networks  Digital television is cheaper

Satellite news gathering (SNG)  ENG/ SNG– electronic devices that allow journalists 

  

to broadcast from remote locations How it works: a mobile communications device equipped with two-way audio and video transmitters and receivers which are beamed at geo-stationary satellites through dish antennas. First developed in 1970s. But it was analog signals, replaced by digital technology in the 1990s. Falklands Islands (1982) and Gulf War (1990/91) Outdoor Broadcasting vans – OB vans

Internet  Initially developed by the US Department of Defence  Commercially available in 1994  Newspapers began to go online with content early

1990s  By the 1990s, many American and European newspapers had a web presence. India, The Hindu was one of the earliest to have a web presence.  Today large newspapers have centralised internetbased networks and all data is on servers

www – The world wide web  Alan Rusbridger, Editor, The Guardian, and

Trafigura‟s encounter with Twitter  Blogging – news websites often host blogs of journalists  Access to internet has given a boost to citizen journalism  News aggregators – Google News

Role of journalism in a tech-savvy world  Alan Rusbridger news media should not dispense

“commoditised news”, because it is freely available  “So we ought not to spend our efforts doing that, we

ought to spend our efforts on what we alone can do. So investigative reporting, informed commentary and analysis becomes important, finding out things which are difficult to find out and which require the skills that we have becomes more important.”

Computer assisted reporting  Software to analyse data  Sarah‟s Law – British law allowing access to

information about convicted paedophiles  News of the World‟s “name and shame” campaign  Attacks on innocent look-alikes. Police warned that real offenders may change identities

Internet – news goes hyper local  Washington Post in 2007, started a section for

Loudoun County, Virginia state.  All of 2,72,000 people – church schedules, restaurant menus, high school sports…

Tele-communications in India  British ed the Indian Telegraph Act 1885. British

had control over telegraphy, and later all other means of communication depending on electromagnetic waves including telephone, fax, radio and tv. Changed after Independence  Radio in India from 1921 and television in september 1959 and enabled SITE in 1975  According to the National Remote Sensing 2006 13 million people have access to the internet and only 1.8 million people live in rural India. – needs more

References  News Writing and Reporting, Bruce Itule and Douglas 

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Anderson Key Concepts in Journalism Studies, Franklin, Hamer, Hanna, Kinsey and Richardson Journalism, Sarah Niblock Trafigura fiasco tears up textbook, The Guardian, 14 October, 2009 Journalism, J.J. Astor The International Encyclopaedia of Communication, Vol VII Encyclopaedia Brittanica Indian Postal History 1947-1997 by Ashok Kumar Bayanwala http://stampsofindia.com/readroom/b006.htm