Is TV news a window on the world?

Television news certainly would like to be seen as a window on the world, by this I mean that they present them selves as a really important, trust-able  and reliable source of information. They tend to tell us that they are showing the most important news national and international.
They certainly try to represent itself as unbiased, neutral and impartial. The real question is, to what extent does the news remain relevant? We will never have a definite answer, all we know is that media has a great power when it comes to news. What we are presented with in the news television is an interpretation of the medias point of view on what is important and what is not. Everyday there are millions of events and everyday only 6 to 10 of these events are presented as important from only one person in the media point of view.
Online news tend to be more relevant than actual news on TV. The reason for this is simply because there is less control of what gets published on the internet news. Also it is a better way to find out more about what you want as you can just research the event instead of waiting and hopping it comes up on the TV news. The fact of television news being a window on the world is seem to be very unreliable as they do not have a huge range of source portrayed to the audience.

There are simply methods used in the television news to bride the audience to think that the news which will be shown is actually a really important and relevant to everyone.
The first method is the "starting sequence" used. The other method is the news reader and the way they are presented.
Starting sequence- This is the first few seconds of the news. It also is the introduction of what will be told in news.
News reader- This is one or more people who will be introducing and telling us the news.
Here is an example of a starting sequence and news readers:


Starting sequence method used in this news - Loud bell ringing, fast rushing graphics, fast pace music, earth and important cities around the world is shown.
News reader method used in this news -  Behind a desk, well dressed and smart, mid 40s male, mid 20s female, load of paper work in the desk.

As you can see in this sequence before the news actually started we hear a loud bell ringing and then we are already introduced to a story which we will be hearing from later on in the news. The bell ringing connotes the fact that it is bang on 10 o'clock, the exact time the news should start. The short introduction to the story is trying to tell us that that story is the main story of the day.

Following that we are then taken straight into the title sequence which plays a big role in the news industry. The title sequence has to put up a show in order for the news to be seen as interesting and important. The title sequence is consisted of fast rushing graphics and fast pace music to connote emergency/urgency. We start at the top of the earth and are taken through a series of cities and finally we finish at the Big Ben showing a time of 10 o'clock.

Once the news starts we first see two news readers sitting at a desk in a studio. They both are well dressed and presented. Also they have a series of paper work in front of them which to us connotes importance. To start the news we have the man telling the first news and the woman sitting quietly waiting to go second. As we can see the male reporter seems to be more of a middle age and the woman is much younger compared to him. The use of the middle aged men is simply because they tend to connote knowledge. The use of the young good looking female connotes beauty. This kind of stereotype is mostly seen in news.
The reporters when doing their job have a limited face expression. When they telling us the news they cannot show feelings as happy, sad and many mores simply because they are telling us and we have the write to think and feel how we want and not how they want. They have to use formal standard English and serious tone at all the time. This implies that what they are telling the audience/viewers is very important.

Impartiality law
The law states that all news should be impartial. This simply means that all stories told to the audience should not be bias.
In the Ofcom website there is a section which outlines more the importance of impartiality law.

There is more to add to this section, "The exclusion of views or opinions". This is more rules coming from the Ofcom for news presentation on television.

Knowing we have all these rules stated we as an audience would be more secured in believing what is told in the news is the most relevant and important news. We believe that the news is actually delivering what it claims. However is this really the case?


Lets take a look at "The gate keeping process".
The gate keeping process takes us through the steps the events go through in order to make it to the list of being told in the news for the public.
An event occurs -
First step- Must be found by the "News source". If in unpopular area and not found this event will be not told so therefore it will go to the history bin.
Second step- This event must have a "News value" or be really important in the eye on the media. Again if not it will also end up in the history bin. In order for a story to make to the news the people who chooses this must think it is important. Again this controversies the fact of the TV news be a window on the world as it is up to a certain person to decide if a case is important enough to get on the news. According to the media there are 8 factors in which determines if a story has a great news value. For the story to make it to the news it should have "potential, timeliness, prominence, proximity, the bizarre, conflict, currency and human interest". Here is a screenshot of these 8 news value in more detail:

Third step- Does the even have "Legal constraints"? How far can the organisation go in regards to a specific matter.
Fourth step- Does the event fit the "News cost"? Will it be enough funding to research and tell the story.
Fifth step- Will the organisation face "Competition"? If yes this could also affect the fact of the event being shown or not.
Sixth step- "Broadcasting problems". Do all footage and links work fine for broadcasting?

All news events have to pass through those six steps before arriving to the public. This Gating keeping process is a method media created in order to decide what is shown. If an event does not go through one of those step it will simply be thrown into the history bin where the world will not be informed about it. Knowing about the gate keeping process it emphasizes the fact of television news being bias.

Conclusion:
I think the fact that what we are told in the news only depends on the choice of a certain group of people (white, middle class, middle age, southern, university educated, straight males) is not right as we are not hearing what we want to but what they wants us to hear. This makes the point of the news being a window on the world bias. In my opinion this should be changed, we should have more variety of news deciders and news readers. We should also have more varieties of news stories. Maybe the media should make news an hour long instead of just 30 minutes so that way more stories are covered.