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Essay
Content Analysis
Look closely at the content of cable news and it becomes
clear that its appeal is its ubiquity and convenience; the
medium does not come close to delivery on the potential of
its depth or breadth.
-
The reporting is measurably thinner than the other forms
of national television news studied. Its stories are more
one-sided and have fewer sources, and audiences are told
less about those sources than in network evening or morning
news or PBS.
-
The thinness of the reporting on cable can be attributed
partly, but only partly, to its abandoning written, edited
stories in favor of live anchor interviews and reporter
standups.
-
These tendencies are even more acute in certain kinds
of programming, particularly during prime-time talk shows
and dayside news programming.
-
Content analysis reveals clear differences overall between
the three channels. Fox is more deeply sourced than its
rivals, but it is also more opinionated and more one-sided,
though one of the programs studied defies that generalization.
-
CNN is the least transparent about its sources of the
three cable channels, but more likely to present multiple
points of view and more disciplined about keeping journalistic
opinion out of its reporting.
Those are some of the key findings of the Project's new two-pronged
approach to examining cable news. As we did last year, we
first studied five sample days of each of the three cable
news networks for sixteen hours each day, or 240 hours of
programming. That provided us with a sense of the types of
stories and the level of repetitiveness that appeared over
the course of a cable news day.
In addition, this year we selected three different types
of programs from each of the three channels to study for twenty
days to see how their choice and treatment of topics compared
with other media studied the same days. The programs studied
included one prime-time talk show, one daytime news show and
the closest each news channel comes to producing a traditional
evening newscast. That added up to 180 more hours of programming
involving another 4,551 stories.
Repetition vs. Updating
Although cable news purports to provide continuously updated
coverage of breaking news, the idea that it is "following"
stories and adding new information through the course of the
day is in the main an illusion.
In the course of sixteen hours of viewing starting at 7 a.m.
for five separate days, most of the stories on cable news
(67%) are the same matter turned to repeatedly, and only 10%
add meaningful updates with substantive new information.
In other words, 60% of all stories aired on cable through
the day are simple repetition of the same information. Just
one in three stories in the course of a cable day is new,
or something not aired earlier.
Those figures are nearly identical to what we found last
year, when 68% of the stories were repetitious, just 5% contained
any substantive updates, and 27% were completely new.
What does that mean? With hours of air time and numerous
correspondents, resources are devoted much less to gathering
new information, or going deeper with background reporting,
than to being live and appearing to be on top of three or
four big stories of the day.
Repetition on Cable News
Percent of all stories from 7A.M.-11P.M.
Exact Repeat |
12%
|
Repeat: No New Substance |
35
|
Repeat: New Angle |
11
|
Repeat: New Substance |
10
|
New Story |
33
|
Totals may not equal 100 due to rounding. |
Breadth of Topic
The consequence is a notably limited breadth of reporting.
In all, the three cable programs we followed over twenty days
tended to cover a narrower range of topics even than network
evening newscasts -- and far less than online or print. Cable
news spends a smaller percentage of its time than does network
evening news covering government and, perhaps even more notably,
roughly half as much time covering the broad range of domestic
issues, from the environment, to transportation, health care,
social security, welfare, education, economics, technology,
science and more.
In contrast, lifestyle, entertainment and celebrity -- topics
virtually nonexistent on nightly newscasts or the front pages
of newspapers -- are the largest topic group on cable news.
And that holds true even though the amounts vary across the
range of program types. For instance, collectively, science,
technology, and business made up just 2% of the time studied
over twenty days, and the range of domestic issues, from education
to the environment to health care, made up 11%. Celebrity,
lifestyle and entertainment made up nearly a quarter of the
time (23%).
Topics on Cable and Network News
Percent of all time
|
Cable
|
Network Evening
|
Network Morning
|
Government |
17%
|
29%
|
25%
|
Defense/Military |
7
|
1
|
0
|
Foreign Affairs |
9
|
14
|
8
|
Elections |
14
|
11
|
8
|
Domestic Affairs |
11
|
20
|
15
|
Business |
1
|
4
|
1
|
Crime |
3
|
1
|
5
|
Science/Technology |
1
|
4
|
3
|
Celebrity |
14
|
2
|
4
|
Lifestyle |
9
|
4
|
7
|
Accidents/Disasters |
2
|
4
|
3
|
Other |
12
|
6
|
21
|
Totals may not equal 100 due to rounding.
|
Live Reporting Lives On
The second major feature of cable news is that it is dominated
by the culture of live, extemporaneous journalism.
Over the three programs studied for twenty days, 52% of time
was spent in live interviews (usually by anchors) or reporters
in live standups.
The medium, as noted last year, "has all but abandoned
what was once the primary element of television news, the
written and edited story."
Less than half as much time, 24%, on the cable programs studied
is made up of correspondent packages. Compare that to network
nightly newscasts, in which 86% of time is such packages,
or even morning news or PBS, where a third of time is correspondents
telling stories.
Another 17% of time is devoted to anchors reading the teleprompter,
so-called tell stories, either with video or without. And,
in a feature that is not usually found on other TV programming,
6% of the time covered live events such as press conferences.
(1% was spent on banter between stories.)
Story Origination on Cable News
Percent of all time
|
Packages
|
Staff Package |
24%
|
Staff Live |
52
|
Anchor Voice Over/Tell Story |
17
|
Live Events |
6
|
Banter |
1
|
External Outlets |
1
|
Totals may not equal 100 due to rounding. |
The figures for those three programs studied in depth, moreover,
closely mirror what viewers would see on the cable networks
generally. In the course of a sixteen-hour day, 46% of the
time on cable is spent in what its producers can describe
as live -- either live interviews, usually by anchors, or
reporters talking live to the camera. Another 5% is live events
such as press conferences aired as they happen (usually without
a reporter on camera in any form).
Only 26% of the entire cable day comprises correspondent
packages. Anchors reading the teleprompter, so-called tell
stories or headline news, with or without video, account for
another 20%.
Promotions and small talk between staff members take up the
remaining 5% of the day, or 48 minutes of air time.
The approach has all the virtues of capturing events as they
are happening. It is also cheaper, and helps create the impression
that things are up to date.
But the amount of updating, as we noted, is minimal, and
the emphasis on live cable news has resulted in walking away
from the capacity to review, verify, edit, choose words carefully
and match those words to pictures.
Audiences are even less likely to find verified, edited journalism
at certain times of the day. Those watching talk shows such
as Larry King or Bill O'Reilly will see barely any taped packages.
Those watching the closest thing that cable has to a signature
evening newscast (Brit Hume on Fox, Aaron Brown on CNN or
Keith Olberman on MSNBC) are more likely to see taped packages
(42% of all time). Still, that is only half as likely as on
the broadcast evening news on ABC, CBS or NBC, where 86% of
all time is edited packages.
Thinner Reporting on Cable
In part because of the dependence on being live -- and the
illusion that creates of being new -- cable news is also more
thinly reported than most other kinds of national TV news.
Over all, cable news stories have fewer sources than those
on broadcast, reveal less about those sources, and, if the
story involves a dispute, contain fewer conflicting points
of view than in broadcast TV.
To pin this down, the study went deeper this year than last
in examining the depth or thoroughness of reporting. This
analysis was done in the three key parts of the day studied
for 20 days -- daytime, prime-time talk and the key evening
newscast -- to get a range of different styles of programming,
and to match the same days studied in other media. Specifically,
we studied:
-
How many sources stories contained and how much the stories
shared with the audience about those sources.
-
The degree to which stories that involved controversy
reflected more than one side of the story.
-
Whether stories contained the journalists' own opinions,
unattributed to any sourcing or reporting.
Depth of Sourcing
In general, cable news was less likely than other media to
contain multiple sources with enough description attached -- their identity, their level of knowledge about the events
being described and any potential biases -- to enable audiences
to judge what they were saying.
Only a quarter of cable stories studied (26%) contained even
two or more such sources. That compares with 50% of network
evening news stories, 81% of stories on newspaper front pages
and 78% of online news stories. Even network morning shows,
with their penchant for long one-person interviews, tended
to have significantly more stories, 39%, with at least two
fully transparent sources.
Most cable stories (74%) had no source that audiences could
fully identify, or only one.
The dependence on live programming is one reason cable reporting
is thinner and at the same time less transparent. The live
reporting on cable is even more thinly sourced than cable
news as a whole. Most of the live reports, 60%, were based
on only a single source that audiences could fully identify.
The taped edited packages on cable were four times as likely
to contain four or more fully identified sources as the live
reports, and nearly twice as likely to contain two or three
(see chart). But even the taped, edited packages on cable
contained fewer fully transparent sources than packages on
commercial broadcast newscasts or on PBS, despite cable's
advantage of having more time for the news.
Source Transparency on Cable, by Story
Type
Percent of all stories
|
Packages
|
Live Reports/
Interviews
|
Anchor Voice Over
|
Anchor Reads
|
Live Events
|
None |
12%
|
11%
|
78%
|
74%
|
20%
|
1 |
23
|
60
|
18
|
16
|
63
|
2-3 |
45
|
25
|
3
|
9
|
11
|
4 |
20
|
5
|
1
|
1
|
6
|
Totals may not equal 100
due to rounding. |
Breadth of Viewpoints
The reporting on cable news is also more one-sided than that
in other media studied.
Over all, only a quarter of cable stories that involved controversy
contained anything more than a passing reference to a second
point of view. That was much less balanced than all the over-the-air
broadcast news programs studied. Indeed, stories on morning
news, PBS evening news and those on newspaper front pages
were more than three times as likely to contain a mix of views,
and commercial evening newscasts just under that.
Range of Viewpoints on Cable and Network
News
Percent of all stories
|
Cable
|
Network Evening
|
Network Morning
|
Mix |
27%
|
72%
|
86%
|
Mostly One View |
21
|
8
|
2
|
Only One View |
52
|
20
|
11
|
Totals may not equal 100 due to rounding. |
Certain kinds of storytelling on cable tended to be more
balanced than others, and again live reporting was at the
bottom of that scale. More than three-quarters of interviews
and reporter standups (78%) told only one side, or mostly
one side, of controversial stories. That meant only 22% of
live reported stories offered a balance of at least two viewpoints.
Taped packages on cable fared better, but not dramatically.
Just over a third of the taped packages studied (38%) offered
at least two points of view, which still meant that 62% were
mostly one-sided. Indeed, the taped edited packages on cable
do not stack up against those on network news in this regard.
On the Big Three commercial nightly newscasts, 75% of the
taped packages contained multiple viewpoints. So the style
of storytelling does not entirely explain the one-sidedness
of cable.
Range of Viewpoints on Cable News, by
Story Type
Percent of all stories
|
Packages
|
Staff Live
|
Anchor Voice Over
|
Anchor Reads
|
Live Events
|
Mix |
38%
|
22%
|
30%
|
32%
|
9%
|
Mostly One View |
29
|
21
|
10
|
7
|
4
|
Only One View |
34
|
58
|
60
|
61
|
88
|
Totals may not equal 100
due to rounding. |
Live reports also differ from taped packages in ways some
people might argue are advantages. For instance, while reporter
standups and live interviews tended not to cite multiple sources,
they also tended to avoid citing anonymous sources, perhaps
because they often had just one source in all -- the interviewee.
Just 5% of live reports on cable contained anonymous sourcing,
compared with 20% of packaged pieces.
Interestingly, correspondents and anchors on live and unscripted
stories also seem less likely to inject their own opinions
in their reports. Just over a third of live cable reports,
34%, contained journalist opinion, versus 43% of packaged
pieces.
One possible explanation is that reporters and anchors who
are live may adopt a stenographic frame of mind, trying to
simply recall and recite what they have been told. That would
help explain both their tendency toward one-sidedness and
their avoidance of giving opinions.
Journalist Opinion on Cable News, Select
Story Types
Percent of all stories
|
Packages
|
Staff Live
|
Total
|
No Opinion |
57%
|
66%
|
71%
|
Opinion |
43
|
34
|
28
|
Totals may not equal 100 due to rounding.
|
One area where there is little difference between live and
packaged is how correspondents frame their reporting. Packages
tend to be a little more conflict-oriented while live reports
do a little more reality check pieces (i.e. is this really
true? What does this really mean?) and telling of a good tale.
Generally, though, correspondents gravitate to the same kinds
of frames.
Story Frames on Cable, Select Story Types
Percent of all stories
|
Packages
|
Staff Live
|
Total
|
Conflict |
42%
|
31%
|
23%
|
Consensus |
4
|
5
|
3
|
Winners/Losers |
12
|
7
|
5
|
Problems to Solve |
8
|
5
|
4
|
Good Yarn |
10
|
13
|
10
|
Reality Check |
2
|
5
|
2
|
Underlying Principles |
2
|
4
|
2
|
Other |
5
|
5
|
4
|
No Frame |
15
|
25
|
45
|
Totals may not equal 100 due to rounding.
|
Are interview-based programs necessarily less able to offer
a broad range of views and deep sourcing? Perhaps not. One
interview-based program that seems to do a good job of this
in the PBS NewsHour, which often combines packages and live
discussion. (See Network/Content
Analysis)
Differences Among Cable Channels
Our content analysis also shows measurable differences in
what each of the cable networks puts on the air. This study
made no attempt to identify bias, or whether one network tilted
to the Democrats or Republicans. Some more basic distinctions,
however, were evident.
Fox was measurably more one-sided than the other networks,
and Fox journalists were more opinionated on the air. The
news channel was also decidedly more positive in its coverage
of the war in Iraq, while the others were largely neutral.
At the same time, the story segments on the Fox programs studied
did have more sources and shared more about them with audiences.
CNN tended to air more points of view in its stories than
others, and its reporters rarely offered their own opinions,
but the news channel's stories were noticeably thinner in
the number of sources and the information shared about them.
MSNBC consistently fell between its two rivals on most indices.
In the degree to which journalists are allowed to offer their
own opinions, Fox stands out. Across the programs studied,
nearly seven out of ten stories (68%) included personal opinions
from Fox's reporters -- the highest of any outlet studied by
far.
Just 4% of CNN segments included journalistic opinion, and
27% on MSNBC.
Fox journalists were even more prone to offer their own opinions
in the channel's coverage of the war in Iraq. There 73% of
the stories included such personal judgments. On CNN the figure
was 2%, and on MSNBC, 29%.
The same was true in coverage of the Presidential election,
where 82% of Fox stories included journalist opinions, compared
to 7% on CNN and 27% on MSNBC.
Those findings seem to challenge Fox's promotional marketing,
particularly its slogan, "We Report. You Decide."
Some observers might argue that opinions clearly offered
as such are more honest than a slant subtly embedded in the
sound bites selected or questions asked. But that was not
the case here. Given the live formats on cable, the opinions
of reporters and anchors are often embedded in questions or
thrown in as asides. Only occasionally were they labeled as
commentary.
Journalist Opinion in Iraq War Coverage,
Cable News
Percent of Iraq War stories
|
CNN
|
Fox
|
MSNBC
|
Total
|
No Opinion |
98%
|
27%
|
71%
|
70%
|
Opinion |
2
|
73
|
29
|
30
|
Totals may not equal 100
due to rounding. |
Tone of Coverage
The study this year also tried to assess the tone of coverage.
When it came to the war, Fox again looked different from the
others by being distinctly more positive than negative. Fully
38% of Fox segments were overwhelmingly positive in tone,
more than double the 14% of segments that were negative. Still,
stories were as likely to be neutral as positive (39%) and
another 9% were multi-subject stories for which tone did not
apply.
On CNN, in contrast, 41% of stories were neutral in tone
on the 20 days studied, and positive and negative stories
were almost equally likely -- 20% positive, 23% negative. Some
15% were multi-faceted and not coded for tone.
MSNBC's stories about the war were most likely to include
several issues or subjects, so that no one area could be coded
for tone. Fully four in ten stories were of this nature. Otherwise,
the network's coverage, like CNN's, was more neutral (28%)
with positive and negative stories almost equally prevalent,
(16% positive and 17% negative).
Tone of Iraq War Coverage on Cable News
Percent of Iraq War stories
|
CNN
|
Fox
|
MSNBC
|
Total
|
Positive |
20%
|
38%
|
16%
|
24%
|
Neutral |
41
|
39
|
28
|
36
|
Negative |
23
|
14
|
17
|
19
|
Multi-Subject |
15
|
9
|
40
|
21
|
Totals may not equal 100 due to rounding.
|
When it came to election coverage, the majority of stories
on every network had no overwhelming tone. Here MSNBC stood
out as being twice as likely to air candidate and issue stories
with a positive tone as with a negative tone. CNN's coverage,
on the other hand, was more likely to be negative. Fox was
divided equally among positive and negative stories.
Tone of Election Coverage on Cable News
Percent of election stories
|
CNN
|
Fox
|
MSNBC
|
Total
|
Positive |
10%
|
16%
|
17%
|
15%
|
Neutral |
62
|
56
|
32
|
47
|
Negative |
17
|
17
|
8
|
13
|
Multi-Subject |
11
|
12
|
42
|
25
|
Totals may not equal 100 due to rounding.
|
Only weeks after being installed as CNN's president, Jonathan
Klein proclaimed an end to the shout fests that have come
to characterize cable news, canceling the network's archetypical
Crossfire program and declining to renew the contract of the
conservative talker Tucker Carlson. "We always want to
be provocative," Klein said. "But there is a numbness
that has set in among those head-butting festivals. I'm convinced
that the political brainiacs we have at CNN can come up with
a better way to engage the audience."
In place of shouting, Klein said, he wanted to return to
"roll-up-your-sleeves storytelling."
"CNN is a different animal," Klein told the New
York Times. "We report the news. Fox talks about the
news. They're very good at what they do and we're very good
at what we do."
Is there evidence that CNN is more fact-oriented, more neutral
and more tied to storytelling than rivals Fox or MSNBC in
2004? Where does each station fall heading as the new year
unfolds?
CNN, according to the data, does indeed seem to offer more
neutral reporting. Its adherence to storytelling, though,
seems to be more of a mixed bag. Its NewsNight with Aaron
Brown is heavy on such pieces, but its noontime programming
spends less time on packaged pieces than Fox or MSNBC.
MSNBC fits somewhere in the middle on most of these measures,
perhaps waiting to see which approach bears most fruit.
Three Distinct Types of Programs
Last year, the study found that the cable day broke down
into four distinct parts of the day: the traditional morning
show, daytime, early evening and prime time. Each had its
own personality, with the three networks remarkably similar
within each time frame. This year, to look more closely at
those dayparts, we examined an hour of daytime, a prime-time
talk show and the closest thing that each of the network offers
to a prime-time signature newscast, all in a 20-day period.
Prime-Time Talk Shows
The highest-rated program on every network is a prime-time
talk show, and we examined each of them: Larry King on CNN,
Bill O'Reilly on Fox and Chris Matthews on MSNBC.
The three shows are built around interviews, which take up
81% of their time, but they are not identical. King leans
almost entirely on interviews -- 95% of all his time. The O'Reilly
Factor relies on them heavily as well (79%), but 20% of the
program's time is made up of the host reading news items and
commentaries of his own.
MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews has evolved into something
different. A quarter of its airtime (26%) is packaged pieces.
Interviews with guests and MSNBC reporters make up 67% of
the time. The remaining 8% is briefs and voice-overs. The
channel appears to be trying to morph Hardball into something
that is partially a news program.
The talk shows build their appeal partly around their hosts,
of course, and partly around the celebrity of their guests
rather than issues or events. As a group, these shows dedicated
most of their time to three main topic areas in 2004: the
elections (17%), government (16%), and celebrity/entertainment
(16%). Lifestyle stories accounted for another 11% of the
airtime and domestic affairs 14%.
Yet in choice of topics, the three programs also had different
characters. Larry King devoted close to half (45%) of his
time to entertainment and lifestyle topics, more than twice
the figure for O'Reilly (21%) and three times as much as for
Matthews (13%). Matthews, a former congressional press aide,
spent more than half of his time on government and election
topics, (the next most popular topics on CNN and Fox). O'Reilly's
program was more of a mix.
Beyond topic, the most striking difference among the three
shows is in the presence of the host's opinion. Nearly every
story on Fox's O'Reilly Factor (97%) contained O'Reilly's
opinions, even his quick news briefs. CNN's Larry King was
nearly the reverse, with only 2% of segments including his
opinions. And despite to his reputation for dominating the
guests, Chris Matthews on Hardball offered his opinion just
24% of the time.
Topics on Cable News Programs
Percent of all time
|
Total
|
Daytime
|
Newscast
|
Interview
|
Government |
17%
|
18%
|
18%
|
16%
|
Defense/Military |
7
|
6
|
6
|
9
|
Foreign Affairs |
9
|
10
|
13
|
4
|
Elections |
14
|
8
|
18
|
17
|
Domestic Affairs |
11
|
12
|
10
|
11
|
Business |
1
|
2
|
1
|
1
|
Crime |
3
|
5
|
2
|
2
|
Science/Technology |
1
|
1
|
1
|
7
|
Celebrity |
14
|
15
|
10
|
16
|
Lifestyle |
9
|
11
|
6
|
11
|
Accidents/Disasters |
2
|
3
|
2
|
*
|
Other |
12
|
9
|
13
|
6
|
Totals may not equal 100 due to rounding.
|
Cable's Version of the Evening News
None of the cable channels airs a traditional evening newscast,
but each has programs that come closer than others: Special
Report with Brit Hume on Fox, NewsNight with Aaron Brown on
CNN, and Countdown with Keith Olbermann on MSNBC.
The shows do more traditional storytelling than other cable
programs, but produced tape packages are still only half as
prevalent as on commercial network news -- 42% of all time
versus 86%. In format, these news programs are closer to network
morning news, or PBS, where packages make up a third of time.
In the topics they cover, the cable shows also differ from
their broadcast counterparts. They cover government less (18%
vs. 29% of time on network), and the broad range of domestic
issues half as much (10% versus 20%). Meanwhile celebrity
and lifestyle, virtually non-existent on broadcast nightly
newscasts, account for 16% of the time on their cable counterparts.
The only topic that gets similar amounts of time on both cable
and broadcast network evening newscasts is foreign affairs.
In depth of sourcing, the news round-up programs do better
than their cable siblings, but again fall short of levels
found on network evening news or in print. That pattern also
holds true for the mix of viewpoints offered.
Source Transparency on Cable versus
Network News
Percent of all stories
|
Cable Daytime
|
Cable Newscast
|
Cable Talk Shows
|
Network Evening
|
None |
56%
|
38%
|
11%
|
37%
|
1 |
28
|
26
|
60
|
14
|
2-3 |
14
|
23
|
26
|
32
|
4 |
3
|
13
|
3
|
18
|
Totals may not equal 100
due to rounding. |
Range of Viewpoints, Cable versus Network
News
Percent of applicable stories
|
Cable Daytime
|
Cable Newscast
|
Cable Talk Shows
|
Network Evening
|
Mix of Opinions |
18%
|
39%
|
26%
|
72%
|
Mostly One Opinion |
24
|
28
|
13
|
8
|
All One Opinion |
59
|
33
|
61
|
20
|
Totals may not equal 100
due to rounding. |
Are there differences between the networks here? Aaron Brown's
program on CNN leans the most on taped edited packages -- double
Keith Olberman on MSNBC and more than Brit Hume on Fox. Olbermann
favors summaries of the news (more than triple that of CNN
or FOX). Hume is a mix of taped packages followed by interviews.
The Hume program is also Washington-centric -- 60% of it concerns
government, the military and politics).
Daytime
The bulk of the cable news networks' time, between 5 and
7 hours a day, is made up of programs that might be called
dayside. These shows, between 9 a.m. and roughly 3 p.m. depending
on the channel, track the news of the day as it is happening.
The dayside programs offer a broader mix of storytelling
formats than anything else we studied on cable. Edited packages
take up 20% of the time, live interviews and standups 36%,
and anchors' reads, sometimes with pictures, another 22%.
Shown during the workday, these programs are more likely than
others to carry events live (18% of time).
Yet like their evening counterparts, these programs are conspicuously
limited in their range of topics. Entertainment and lifestyle
stories were given the most attention -- a quarter of all airtime,
(26%) nearly exactly the same as on prime-time cable talk
shows. Interestingly, the daytime programs studied devoted
less time to the elections (8%) than the other cable programs.
Sourcing on these daytime news programs was measurably thin.
More than half, 56%, of all stories had not even a single
fully identified source. Another 28% had just one. A mere
3% of all stories contained four or more fully transparent
sources.
Journalist Opinion on Cable News Programs
Percent of applicable stories
|
Daytime
|
Newscast
|
Talk Show
|
No Opinion |
68%
|
74%
|
73%
|
Opinion |
31
|
26
|
27
|
Totals may not equal 100
due to rounding.
|
Despite what Klein of CNN suggested, the daytime programs
we studied were even less focused on the storytelling he was
referring to than the rival networks.
At noon, CNN Live Today was the least devoted to packaged
pieces (roughly half as much time as Fox News Live and a third
as much as MSNBC Live). It spent more time instead on quick
anchor reads. And lifestyle stories made up more than 20%
of all airtime.
Fox News, on the other hand, tended to spend more time covering
live events, and as a result offered more coverage about the
government than either of the other stations.
Summary
For the second straight year, content analysis raises substantial
questions about the nature of reporting on cable news. The
time required to continuously be on the air seems to take
a heavy toll on the nature of the journalism presented. While
there are differences between channels identified this year
in coding of the thoroughness of the reporting, the sector
generally falls behind those of other media studied.
It appears that the appeal of cable is its convenience. It
is there when you need it, and in a nation of multi-taskers,
it can be on as a kind of background, something we can turn
to in moments of curiosity.
The problems exposed in the content analysis may begin to
seem more troubling to viewers when the Internet in the next
year or two begins to meaningfully add searchable video. At
that point, the Web will begin to present television on demand,
when you want it, and in a searchable form.
Then the second disadvantage of cable as an on-demand medium
will become more important: the fact that one has to sit through
"the wheel" of whatever is on before a subject of
choice might appear.
The Internet will offer the advantages of carefully produced
packages, with the convenience of having it there when you
want it.
The question will be how much hold the ease of television
has on viewers -- it comes at you without your having to so
much as click a mouse -- combined with the impression of its
being up to the minute because it is "live."
Click
here to view footnotes for this section.
Click
here to view content data tables.
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