Broadcast News (1987)

The movie Broadcast News is about the story of Jane Craig, who is a television news producer at news network. The beginning of the film shows her as a young child and lets the audience know that she has interests in writing, even at such a young age. Whilst she has great talent in writing, it is later revealed at a talk which she is presenting, that she does not have great speaking performance. She then meets Tom, a news anchor who has recently been hired at Jane’s news network. The rest of the story is how Jane tries to help Tom, and her eventually falling in love with him after his first solo assignment which was about date rape. However, we later find out that Aaron, who is a close colleague of Jane, has also been in love with her and revealed to Jane that Tom faked his acting during his solo assignment. She cuts her ties with Tom and the three go their separate ways.

Television news is all about the presentation during the given air time. People work together in order to produce a quality presentation. As it is a live broadcast, people are working against time and this is shown evidently when Jane is trying to work with Bobby, who is responsible for the video and sound editing, to fix the tapes for the broadcast video. Blair is extremely stressed and fears not meeting the deadline for going live. She screams at Jane and Bobby to hurry and that she will be responsible if they do not finish it on time. Television newsrooms show people not really speaking much, as they are all working separately on their parts. People are also shown watching the news broadcasts together, and then congratulating one another for their individual tasks that led to the presentation. Control rooms are quite dark and are filled with computer and sound managing technology. This room is where Jane was able to feed Tom the information at the best timing. The actual floor in which the news anchor presents from has the news anchor’s podium in the middle. It is surrounded by lights and cameras, with a multitude of people working behind the cameras to ensure the best production is broadcasted.

Print newsrooms, on the other hand, are different in that they work all work on a printed story that is set to be printed for the next day. Their desks are all facing towards each other in order to easily allow them to talk amongst themselves. They are not in such a rush, as their deadline set later then television news’ live broadcasts. Print newsrooms also only have two locations: the main office where people write the stories, and the printing facility. They mainly use typewriters and computers to write their stories.

The main difference between the two is that television newsrooms use much more variants of technology than printing newsrooms. Television newsrooms would have to use better computers, video cameras, networks for live broadcasts, cassette tapes, and video or sound editing software. Printing newsrooms would only use the basic devices such as computers, audio recorders, cameras, and of course the industrial scale printers, in order to successfully bring the story out to the people.

Another factor that could be identified as a difference for the two newsrooms is the kind of stress and expectancy that they are faced with. Television news rooms would have a higher level of stress, as the information would have to be immediately made into a story in order for the news anchor to report on the story, as it is a live broadcast.

When it comes to difficulties that the journalists in the film encountered, I could identify three important problems or difficulties in getting the story. The first one that that was introduced is Jane’s inability to communicate to audiences in a way that would capture their attention. In the beginning of the film, she is seen speaking at a conference wherein people were visibly bored. Some were talking to one another, while a man was seen fiddling with his pocket square, and some simply began to leave the talk. The next difficulty that is very much a reality when it comes to television journalism is actually going to areas of conflict in order to acquire video footage and testaments. In the film, Jane and Aaron went to a forest in South America, along the Nicaraguan border, to film guerilla soldiers. They encountered a firefight, which would have ended differently if any of the crew got hit. It shows that these journalists are willing to risk their safety and security in order to get footage for their news firm. The final conflict is regarding Aaron and Tom and their rivalry amongst each other. There is a segment in the film wherein news of a Libyan plane bombing a U.S. military base in Italy arrives during their social event and Paul, their network director, assigns Tom the job of news anchor for the story. This disheartens Aaron, as he is clearly more qualified for the job of reporting the event as he has extensive knowledge about the Libyan conflict and has personally interviewed Gaddafi.

I’ve learned from the movie that in television journalism, tasks may be appropriate for your given skills and talents. Being charismatic and being able to appear as if you believe what you are presenting is what is important if you wish to be a news reporter. If your presentation is done right, such as when Tom pretended to cry during his interview with the rape victim, then you are able to your job correctly. It may not be ethical, but it works. Aaron, who is more intelligent and appropriate for the job, does not have the charisma and appeal that Tom has, and thus cannot be a news anchor. When Aaron is given the task of news anchor for the weekend news, he sweats profusely, is visibly anxious, and cannot deliver the news story properly. Jane is similar to Aaron, in that she does not possess the ability and charisma to talk to an audience to garner their full attention. However, she is great at her job as the company’s news producer.