Media & PR

The newspapers should review the TV news

A TV remote control - photo by RonPorter from Pixabay and used under the Pixabay license

Image by Ron Porter from Pixabay.

Printed newspaper circulation is certainly in sustained, long-term decline, even if likely to hang on in some form at much-reduced levels. Whether the political influence that newspapers have is in quite such a decline is another matter, not only because of the rise of their websites and apps, but also because of the way in which newspapers still set so much of the media’s agenda.

It’s best illustrated by the late night and early morning newspaper reviews so common on TV and radio. Twice a day they hand over the decision on what is important to the newspapers, reporting what a different medium has decided to prioritise instead.

The future of newspapers as it looked in 1994

Back in December 1994 The Guardian ran a piece on "The tomorrow of newspapers" complete with a mocked up newspaper from December 2004. more

Before newspapers went online, newspaper reviews served a helpful purpose for viewers and listeners. They provided a convenient summary of something that was otherwise hard to find out save for the small minority who worked in an office which got in all the day’s newspapers. Now, however, it’s so easy to look at different newspaper websites, seeing what different stories each is running, that the benefit is much reduced.

But you know what would be convenient? A round-up in the morning newspapers of what last night’s TV news lead stories were, because flicking across news websites is far, far easier than tracking what the lead stories are on the TV news bulletins. Given how often that varies between them, that would be a really handy, convenient summary.

It would also, of course, run completely against the media habit of seeing newspapers as the daily agenda setters whose choices need reporting.

But habits don’t have to be permanent…

One response to “The newspapers should review the TV news”

  1. it always was the case(probably still is, I haven’t checked) that the Sunday morning BBC agenda was identical to that of the Sunday Mail. So whatever bias, spin, priority that Murdoch dictated became the received wisdom of the ‘country’s most important broadcaster’.
    The worrying fact is that our politicians run scared of what the press might say regarding their private lives, and meekly follow the line that the press barons lay out for them. It was ‘the Sun what won it’ may be joked about, but it is seriously what happens.
    Witness : currently the Tory party are dominating the TV interviews, and pushing the line of ‘when we leave the EU’ so that it becomes what the ordinary man-in-the-street expects to happen.
    The fact that escapes them all seems to be that we have a ‘remain parliament’ because we have a representative democracy. ie our elected representatives have looked at the facts and know what is best for us all.. but they are reported as if they are disobedient schoolchildren, refusing to do the will of the PM.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

All comments and data you submit with them will be handled in line with the privacy and moderation policies.