WPXI
Saturday October 15, 2011
11:00 PM to 11:30 PM
Top Story-- Occupy Pittsburgh (3:30)
- Reporter in field
- "Man-on-street" interviews (how are theses people selected?)
- Highlights good of capitalism
- Tribute to officer
- Field reporter again
- Quick cuts (constant change, short attention span?)
- Community coming together, police force is "good"
- House fire (does this count as breaking?)
- Wind damage
- More quick cuts
- How severe is this?
- Trying desperately to make this a story
- Wind speeds
- Always called severe weather center, makes it sound more important
- Temperatures
- Forecast
- Man in hospital after shooting
- Person thrown from car
- Apartment fire
- These get a few seconds of airtime each (few sentences at most)
- How is this helpful? Why not say more about fewer topics?
- Stats
- Player Interviews
- In-show plug for another WPXI show
- Spent Overseas
- Yet another story reduced to a few sentences
- Sears
- Huntington
- Trane
- Chrystler/Dodge
- How do these company's fit here? Who are they trying to reach?
- Lane Restrictions
*Logo and music played throughout ("News Coverage You Can Count On")*
Occupy Pittsburgh-- Again
- This segment seems to praise companies for not taking action against protesters
- Socialism and its role in country
Severe Weather Team Forecast
- Wind-- Again
- Wind speeds-- Again
- Forecast for night-- Again
- Hour by Hour forecast
- *this is more in depth than almost any other segment*
- Game forecast
- *One of the longest segments too*
- Timeline
- 5 Day forecast
- Judge Judy
- Sheetz
- Toyota
- WPXI Weather commercial
Sports (3:30)
- Penguins lose
- Detailed highlights
- Player's talk
- Pitt's season
- Todd Graham and players talk
- Penn State Highlight
- Players speak
- Highmark
- Jeep
- IUP
- Highmark-- Again
END
We talked in class about the fact that people know very little about the world around them. We took a quiz and people could describe Kim Kardashian's wedding, but they could not identify the governor of Pennsylvania. I thought that this was the result of living in a society full of morons. While that is still true, I now see that there are other factors at work. If a person wanted to learn more about the world, one of the first places they would turn would be to the local news. Indeed, many people still tune into local newscasts as their primary source of information about their city, state, or country. No thought could be scarier after just one viewing of WPXI's 11:00 PM broadcast.
The viewer is greeted by the theme music and logos that explain that this is "News Coverage You Can Count On". This is in stark contrast to often frightening story lines emphasized by the news. The world is an awful place, but sit down in the comfort of your home with our trusted news team and we'll tell you all about it. You can count on us. The top story of the night is your only hope for any depth of coverage, but even this barely qualifies as an overview. Tonight, we are treated to news on Occupy Pittsburgh, protests against Wall Street, and frustration with the economy as a whole. WPXI's field reporter describes the protests as the audience watches quick cuts between action shots. Then there are interviews with the average person on the street. Mind you, these people are chosen by the news team and their comments are cleared before they make it on the air. WPXI manages to find a person at the rally who is quick to state that the movement is "pleased with capitalism as a whole". How convenient. WPXI is an NBC affiliate. NBC is a huge conglomerate owned by GE. How convenient that a news program owned by a huge corporation would find ways to praise the system that allows huge companies to assume such power. In fact, the whole half hour played like a long commercial: no substance, selling other WPXI programs, and very brief. It would be hard to learn anything other than "buy, buy, buy" from stories so brief. Sports coverage clocked in at three minutes and thirty seconds, plus other sports related stories mentioned outside of the true sports segment. Weather had not one, but two segments devoted to its content. Sports and weather must make us better citizens. Sports and weather must allow us to be more involved in our community. Want to hear more about the teachers' union negotiations in Bethel Park? Good luck catching the few sentences devoted to that topic. In the span of thirty seconds or less, the anchor read a list of stories that included a shooting, a person being thrown from a car, and an apartment fire. That's about ten seconds per story. Ten seconds. That's enough time to scare someone, but not enough to inform them to any degree. NPR might devote five minutes or more to one story. The PBS series Frontline uses an entire hour to cover stories in depth. If Noam Chomsky and the Manufacturing Consent documentary dealt with oversimplification in mass media and other problem of the sort, they have an excellent example in WPXI's news at 11.
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