News abuse
Yesterday (Oct. 08) there was a terrible earthquake in South Asia. At around 20:00 Israel time, about 1700 people were reported dead in Pakistan, India and Afghanistan. Although it was just a tip of an iceberg compared to what we know about the scope of the tragedy today, the issue naturally caught the headlines all media.
Well, almost…
Before we continue, a footnote about the Israeli TV market. There are 3.5 major broadcast channels in Israel: State owned channel 1; privately owned channels 2 and 10 and privately owned channel 9 which is rather small since it focused on the Russian speaking community. All of them show news, actuality and entertainment programs.
Channel 2 is the leading one scoring for most eyeballs of Israeli viewers and the one which many like to criticize for a really shallow content (which really is shallow). Channel 10 is its major competitor, but it is very young (since 2002) and is still loosing money. One of the recent steps channel 10 has undertaken is buying rights for translation of many sport events, primarily soccer games, which are extremely popular in Israel.
Both channels have supposedly independent news companies, which are (not surprisingly) responsible for gathering and analysis of news. There is a firm formal separation between the channels and news companies. Everything is aimed to separate news from everything else in order to assure maximum accuracy.
Now, getting back to the question mark above, let add another one: what happens when there is a natural disaster with thousands dead and wounded and a game of Israeli national team, which has a slight chance of getting to Mondial? What item should go first? And what item should go first if the game is translated on your channel on the same night?
The news company of channel 10 is usually provides very good news in my eyes. Usually, it seems like they are trying hardier and daring more than the better established news company of channel 2. However yesterday, it looked really bizarre when they started the evening news with a 3 minutes item about the hopeless game and then easily moved talking about the death and distraction in Pakistan (interestingly enough, they also started news 2 minutes before the competitors, but it’s another story).
The news on channel 2 started as one could assume with reportage about the earthquake. I don’t know if they mentioned the game later, but this is less important. What is important in my eyes is the border that is getting crossed again and again between news and program promotions. Channel 2 has its own record of split screen with a soccer game on one half and reportage abut suicide bombing on the other and about opening the news with item about a reality shown at the same channel later that night.
So the question is: where is the red line? I think this time it was really irritating, but surprisingly got no response in other media or any public debate.
(ah, wonders of the media… this is why I find this field fascinating)
2 comments:
I've never seen the TV screen split into two pictures. Is is common? Surely there must be a sensory overload that makes it difficult to watch. I suppose it helps the TV channel because they can put their eggs in two baskets even if it does irritate viewers.
The screen is many times split. For example in one part you can have the scene of whatever is covered and in the other a commentary. However, I think it was pretty much first time (at least my first time) when a screen was split to cover a terrorist attack and a football match at the same time... I don't see other reason, but money for doing that...
Post a Comment