An Analysis on Two Evening Newscasts: The Fox 25 News at 10 & Boston's CW (The Ten O'Clock News)

The Fox 25 News At 10
Date of Newscast: Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Medium: Television (A Particular News Segment On An Evening Newscast)
Format: TV News Program
Purveyor: Fox
Topic: Conflict In Iraq
Target Audience: Random People

A fire sets off a series of explosions. Many people are not exactly sure just how this particular fire started. No injuries were ever reported. This was the only international story (About The Conflict In Iraq) covered on this particular newscast. This newscast was supposed to be televised at 10:00 P. M., but there was apparently a game at that time. There were evidently no reporters narrating at the scene. I could barely make out the images I was seeing. It was like seeing green images that were superimposed on the screen. One of the anchors was narrating in/from the (Dedham, Massachusetts) newsroom. This anchor was apparently not seen in the visuals because the latter was utilizing voiceover narration to speak about this particular story. The images were like visuals which we would all see on a computer radar screen (green & blurry). This had an impact on how I interpreted these images. I didn't clearly know what I was seeing because, like I stated, I just could not make out the images that appeared on my television screen. I couldn't tell if big tanks were depicted in the visuals or not. It was very hard to make out what the visuals (which appeared on my television screen) were. This particular news segment was not reliable to me because I just could not make out what the images featured on my screen were. This particular news segment was told through one of the anchors' point of view. I can't remember what exact words or phrases were said in this particular news segment.

Boston's CW (The Ten O'Clock News)
Date of Newscast: Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Medium: Television (A Particular News Segment On An Evening Newscast)
Format: TV News Program
Purveyor: Boston's CW
Topic: Conflict In Iraq
Target Audience: Random People

The war in Iraq is taking its' toll on how voters feel about republicans.

"A lot of innocent people have lost their life." --President George W. Bush-

Frank Rich notes in, The New York Times article, The Peculiar Disappearance of The War In Iraq (July 30, 2006): "On the Big Three networks' evening newscasts, the time devoted to Iraq has fallen 60 percent between 2003 and this spring, as clocked by the television monitor, the Tyndall Report."

President Bush is seen walking to a podium (Most Likely On The White House Grounds) and then he is seen giving a news press conference. I noticed that only the president is seen in these particular images. There are no microphones (other than the only microphone at the podium). A female anchor narrates both at the start of the visuals and at the end of the visuals. One anchor noted earlier in the newscast that this is the first time the president met with, the house speaker, Dennis Hastert, since the news about Mark Foley first spread across the news media circuit. I know for a fact that this particular news segment clearly was about the conflict in Iraq, but it did not depict any on location images (anywhere) in this particular conflict ridden country.

Two particular news networks (Like CNN & Like Fox) can depict the same exact images, but feature the news segments totally differently (e. g. the journalists' in-depth reporting on the scene, the journalists in-depth reporting off screen, the news anchors' voiceover narration, the length of the news segments, the different video cameras used to film the news segments, etc.).

The two newscasts, that I have chosen, in this particular media-watching journal, are two totally different news segments (with two totally different set of visuals). The news segment (On The Fox Network) takes place (somewhere) right in Iraq and the news segment (On Boston's CW) takes place (I Believe Right On The White House Lawn) in Washington, D. C. I have definitely seen the same stories reported on the news, in newspapers, and in magazines. Every single magazine, every single newspaper, and every single news station constructs the news very differently. All these media outlets may feature the same stories, but the way these particular stories are featured vary from one media outlet to another and another and so on & so forth. The anchors on the Fox Network are naturally just not the same anchors on the CBS Network. The writers at the New York Times are naturally just not the same writers at the Boston Globe. The writers at Time are naturally just not the same writers at Newsweek. The stories reported, with this in mind, will always be constructed differently either in every magazine we ever read, in every newspaper we ever read, or in every newscast we ever watch. The stories may be the same, but the way these particular stories are constructed vary either from news network to news network, from magazine to magazine, or from newspaper to newspaper. The second news segment was told through a female anchors' point of view. I heard some excerpts from President Bush's speech (his point of view) in this particular news segment.

There was a complete world of difference between these two news segments. The second news segment was much more reliable than the first news segment because I could clearly make out the visuals in the latter. The president, who is a very influential figure in the world of politics, appeared in the second news story. Some people may look at this particular story, with the president appearing as the main character in mind, as a very important segment (worth their time) to watch (if they approve of what the president is doing for this country and if they support him as a leader of this country). Other people (a majority of people in this society) may just look at this particular story as any ole segment on one particular news network (taking the story for granted). They may not, succinctly stated, either approve of what the president is doing for this country or they just might not approve of the president himself.