Author Name:
Richard Campbell
Activity Objective:
Students will compare and contrast the genres of TV news and satire news through observation and analysis.
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One fascinating media phenomenon of the first decades of the twenty-first century is that fictional storytelling has changed dramatically over this time while TV news stories, especially local TV news, have hardly changed at all. Why is this? They are both media products that depend on storytelling to draw audiences and make money. But while complex and controversial TV narratives like HBO’s Barry, Netflix’s Stranger Things, and FX’s Atlanta were not possible in the 1960s, when just three national networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC)—careful not to offend or challenge viewers—dominated, the lead crime story on most local TV newscasts around the country today looks pretty much like it did decades earlier.
Since narrative is such a large category— encompassing everything from poetry and novels to movies and TV shows to TV newscasts and political ads—it demands subdivisions. So over time, we developed the idea of genre as a way to differentiate the vast array of stories. Most local and national TV news stories function as a kind of melodrama in which “the city” is often the setting—as it is in most TV newscasts—and it has degenerated into a corrupt and mysterious place, full of crime and mayhem. Historically, heroes of fictional melodramas are small-town sheriffs and big-city cops who must rise above the corruption to impose their individual moral values to defeat various forms of evil.
The appropriation of melodrama narratives by news shows has been satirized by the likes of Anchorman; Saturday Night Live; Comedy Central’s Daily Show and Nightly Show; and John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight on HBO. These satires often critique the way news producers repeat stale formulas rather than invent dynamic new story forms for new generations of viewers. As much as the world has changed since the 1970s (when SNL’s “Weekend Update” debuted), local TV news story formulas have gone virtually unaltered. Modern newscasts still limit reporters’ stories to two minutes or less and promote stylish male–female anchor teams, a sports “guy,” and a certified meteorologist as personalities, usually leading with a dramatic local crime story and teasing viewers to stay tuned for possible weather disasters. So what genre is TV news? Is it as formulaic as news satires, such as “Weekend Update” and Anchorman, make it seem?
Use the space below to answer the following question.