Talk: Sensationalism

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I think this is excellent and NPOV as it stands, if a bit stubish.

What it does not mention is the bias of television news towards stories to which they have film footage.

This was most graphically demonstrated to me during the Siege of Sarajevo, where at one stage a BBC reporter was quoted on the BBC short wave World Service News (which can be received in Australia with suitable equipment but few bother) as saying a particular hill had just fallen to forces attacking the city. Two and a half days later, the same story appeared on Australian television news, with the same reporter, on film, saying that the same hill was about to fall. Obviously, the film had only just arrived in Australia; This was before news video was commonly transmitted by IP or by telephone line as happens now. The disappointing thing was that there was no mention of the fact that the hill had in fact fallen more than two days previously, although surely the newsrooms knew of this.

The reason is not hard to see. The entertainment value of the news programs was enhanced by the illusion that the footage reflected the current state of the war. But, on the other hand, the information value would have been enhanced by the simple endnote "and since this report was filmed the hill mentioned has fallen".

But, that's in a sense my own original research. I don't see any way of incorporating this or similar observations into this article. That's a shame IMO, I think there is some NPOV information content there if only I could extract it. Any suggestions? Andrewa 20:41, 28 Feb 2004 (UTC)

This page should have examples of over sensationized news... Just for reference. 216.13.177.178 22:16, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)