A new video clip from Charlie Booker’s BBC TV show Newswipe has been making the rounds on the Web for its striking satire of television news conventions.
Television broadcast news reports often do seem overly formulaic. The form and pacing of stories are nearly identical to one another: an establishing shot is followed by a reporter striding toward the camera, followed by sound bytes, and so on….This clip is from the second episode of Newswipe’s second season. See video here.
Whether these conventional broadcast news constructions have a negative impact in journalism is up for debate. Though some standardized news presentation styles may involve journalistic goals of presenting information in a fair and comprehensive manner, Booker points out later in his show that these blueprint news stories are often so ubiquitous “your brain just filters them out.”
In any case, the spoof clip is both funny and revealing. See more from Newswipe episodes posted on YouTube.