Although the news documentary, which is produced over a longer period of time than news special—usually months rather than days—may serve the economic function of allowing networks to substitute entertainment programs in the more difficult-to-sell portions of the networks’ schedule. The search for news requires not only a reliable flow of information about events in the immediate past but also advance intelligence about those scheduled for the foreseeable future. Though no doubt a part of any news operation, this latter function is of critical importance to network news. For unlike newspaper and radio news, which literally can put together a news story in a matter of minutes through the expedient of telephone interviews or wire service dispatches, a net-work needs usually hours, if not days, of lead time to realize a film story of even a minute’s duration.
The appropriate camera crew and correspondent must be dispatched to the scene of the event, crew and equipment set up, the story photographed then the film must be processed, edited, narrated for projection. In practice, this means network news must usually commit its crews to stories at least six hours before they occur— considerably longer if they take place in cities in which the networks do not have camera crews readily available. Since the economic logic of network news dictates against operating with more camera crews that .is necessary to produce the number of stories required filling the news programs each day, the available crews must be assigned in a highly efficient manner. This means, in effect, that crews must be dispatched to those happenings which are sure to yield stories, regardless of the vagaries of news developments.
The most common types of such stories are those that are especially planned for the convenience of the news media—press conferences, briefings, interviews and the like which by definition are scheduled well in advance and certain to be “newsworthy”, if only in a self-fulfilling sense. Other news events, such as trials and speeches, though they may not be induced for the sole purpose of creating news, can also .be predicted far in advance. In either case, it is this sort of pre- scheduled event which network news seeks out and operates on. “The whole trick in television news is anticipating stories six or more hours before they happen,” a network executive explains. The way in which this trick is routinely managed is by means of various procedures for gathering, screening and assigning value to information about future events which, to the degree that they systematically influence the coverage of news, may be considered a basic input of network news.
While network news division organizes its own search procedures and may be influenced by individual preferences and styles of reporting on the part of news executives, all network news divisions operate under economic and political structures which impose a similar set of requisites and restraints on them.
The search for suitable stories is thus conducted along similar lines and at all the networks. It is based on five organizing principles.
First, network news is centrally assigned. Rather than having leeway to seek out their own stories, correspondents are generally assigned stories selected by an assignment editor. This fact of life for network correspondents proceeds from the nature of film stories, where the movements of camera crews, film couriers and equipment must be carefully coordinated with those of the correspondent. The preference for generalists over specialists is based on audience considerations. Since the news audience has fewer years of formal education than the population at large, it is presumed by most of the network executives that a generalist who, like most of the audience, is an outsider to a subject; will make it more interesting and comprehensible for most viewers. Network tends to prefer generalists on the grounds that they are less likely to become involved in a story to the point of advocacy. Specialists also present a problem of control since they can claim to know more about their field of competence than an executive producer or assignment editor, they tend to resist the news judgments of others on questions concerning the assignment, scheduling and editing of news stories in their areas. The most important reason is that generalists are prone to far more efficient use of manpower that specialists. Since it is possible to dispatch any available generalist to the nearest or most convenient happening, the news staff can be fully utilized assuming stories can be found in areas proximate to the correspondents. On the other hand, by being restricted to a single field of competence, specialists cannot always cover nearby stories; nor would the distribution of possible stories necessarily coincide each day with the available specialists. Consequently, to produce a set number of stories a day, a network would have to employ many more specialists than generalists. A feature of the system of network news, made possible by the use of centrally assigned ad hoc coverage to generalists, is that a relatively small number of correspondents undertake to use the camera. The number of stories produced is also kept to the minimum. Unlike newspapers, which generally produce more stories than can be used so that editors have room for selection, television news generally cannot afford the luxury of “overset”.
Even when it is recognized that network news does not automatically mirror events but is the product of a decision- making process, network executives deny that the news pictures are the product of the organization as the individual newsmen involved in the process are all autonomous “professionals”. As professionals, it is argued, they make their decisions about news stories independent of the needs, expectations and hierarchy of the organization for which they work. In this way they are analogous to doctors and scientists, who take their values from the standards and code of their profession, and not from any organization which employs them. This analogy also has considerable force. If newsmen, as autonomous professionals, were indeed independent of the organization which employs them—and could select and edit news according to a set of professional norms—then an examination of the decision- making process would be a mere exercise-in clarifying professional norms. Talcott Parsons observes in this context that only members of the profession are treated as qualified to interpret the traditions of the profession authoritatively”, although such analysis is always held to be inconclusive.
Television is not only a program service but an advertising medium which operates in a framework of intense competition. The principal value that television offers to an advertiser is audience. The rating services furnish us and the advertisers with the measurement of the audience generated by the programs. Thus is business requirement of broadcasting essential in soliciting and justifying the advertising expenditures that support the program service.
For their part, television authorities create an audience for advertisers, which is not difficult since they have what amounts to a government-protected monopoly over one of a limited number of channels in an area, or “market”. In turn, advertisers, who are the sole paying customers for television stations, by minutes of time on these programs to convey messages about their products to potential customers?
