News Media and the Hiilsborough tragedy

 The Hillsborough rulings have once again brought traditional media and the newspaper industry into the spotlight and it is worth looking at this issue as an example of how traditional media could set the news agenda and establish lies as truth.  It has taken 26 years years to establish the truth and newspapers owned by Murdoch were complicit in covering up the true facts of the disaster.

Its is harder to conceal lies as truth in the age of social media and online media undermines attempts to conceal or misguide audiences, by misrepresenting the news.

Here is the original front page which caused such an outcry.

Sales of The Sun newspaper in Liverpool are still low as this representation caused such offence.  It took a long time for any apology to be issued.

It was very noticeable this week that the Murdoch press chose not to report the big story that was splashed over all other front pages.

They chose to go with...

By the time their omission had become obvious it was too late to change the print run.  They had to offer some explanation instead.



This shows that traditional media still set the news agenda but cannot control it, particularly any backlash as audiences now have the right and the means to reply and interact in web 2.0. and the age of 'we media'.


Galtung and Ruge established a system of news values to explain how traditional media set its news agenda.  Gain an understanding of this system.


Online media has changed how the news agenda is set and it is no longer totally dictated by 'Big' Media.

ABC figures

Average daily browsers

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MailOnline 14,383,578 (-2.55%)
theguardian.com 8,872,392 (1.23%)
Telegraph 4,328,890 (-6.13%)
Mirror Group Nationals 4,195,021 (-13.01%)
The Independent 2,921,273 (-12.31%)
The Sun 2,046,792 (7.16%)
Metro 1,188,978 (-16.16%)
express.co.uk 1,176,494 (-15.94%)
dailystar.co.uk 685,769 (-23.92%)
Evening Standard 479,367 (-4.53%)


Print Circulation
The Sun 1,741,838 (-2.53%)
Daily Mail 1,562,361 (-1.71%)
Metro 1,347,505 (-0.04%)
Evening Standard 902,005 (0.4%)
Daily Mirror 791,839 (-2.14%)
The Daily Telegraph 472,936 (0.19%)
Daily Star 472,869 (0.53%)
Daily Express 413,140 (1.09%)
The Times 402,752 (-0.35%)
i 269,628 (-0.82%)
Financial Times 195,515 (-1.37%)
Daily Record 174,525 (-1.34%)
The Guardian 161,152 (-1.83%)
The Independent 54,187 (-1.82%)

Analyse these figures to gain an understanding of the news media industry

Draw out several key points that you can use in your analysis.

Wider reading

Use these articles to further your understanding of news media

Cameron and the Panama Papers

Analysis of audience figures

 

News Media in the Online Age

Stories move fast in the online age and gain a momentum of their own.

We could say that unmediated news allows us to get the truth first hand.  An event that unfolds in real time through a feed is about as unmediated as it comes.  Shocking events such as the World Trade Center are memorable as  they were shared by viewers in real time. As the second plane hit the viewing audience were transfixed to the unfolding events on screen.  Most people can remember exactly where they were when this news ran.

Social media still mediates news but the control is less obvious and it is hard to say that they are the new 'gatekeepers'.  The difference is that traditional news media controlled the news to suit their own agendas or ideology.  This can still be seen in traditional media today.

Lets look at the newspapers for today.

The main news items are;

• David Cameron avoiding questions about his father's involvement in tax evasion
• 
  
• The Panama Papers
• 
  
• Teenage killers of a vulnerable woman.

The front pages of newspapers look like this;

The news agenda is set  depending on the owner's political allegiance and their moral compass.

Some choose to pursue the potentially explosive story about tax evasion by the Prime Minister while others  choose to avoid it completely.  Some right wing papers serve up a diet of headlines about illegal immigration and the threat of terrorism.  Why do you think they do this?

On Tuesday these two front pages show how far apart the political divide is in representation of the news in traditional media such as newspapers.  The owners have the power to manipulate the message and to force feed us the news. This striking anomaly even went viral under the heading 'Walnuts'  as it was such a stark reminder of the manipulation of traditional media

The big question is has social media changed news media completely so that the power of these 'gatekeepers' has gone?

What power do the owners of news media still retain?

Who are the new gatekeepers?

How do you receive your news?

In what ways has social media transformed the way that we recieve the news?

The news story continues today as Cameron finally admits to once holding interests in a tax haven.

 Here are today's headlines;

What does this mean for the PM?

What do you think of his position in this affair?

What does this story show about the role of the news media industry ?

What can traditional media (newspapers) do with such a news story that online media cannot ?

Apply the theory of We Media by Dan Gillmor (Book: We The Media)