UK: Death dominates TV news

Posted by Evan Fell on November 12, 2007 at 11:36 AM

Death seems to play a large role in television news. This week alone, five death stories battled for the number one spot and in reporting each story, the reporters tried their best to make a loved one involved in the story have an emotional breakdown.

Jon Birt, former director-general of the BBC said that the TV news had a “bias against understanding” because it would try to focus on the dramatic instead of the explanatory.

John Lloyd of FT.com wonders if this obsession with morbidity just confirms the passivity of viewers “since it isn't attracting more viewers, and since - because we can do nothing about death.”

This obsession can be found not only in TV news, but also in newspapers today.

Source: FT.com

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