News Editors Decide What To Broadcast On Television And What To Print In Newspapers | Band 8 IELTS Essay Sample

News editors decide what to broadcast on television and what to print in newspapers. What factors do you think influence these decisions? Do we become used to bad news? Would it be better if more good news was reported?

Here is a band 8 IELTS essay on this topic submitted by one of our students. Need help with IELTS writing? Get your writing samples corrected by me.

Band 8 IELTS essay sample

News that we obtain from various sources can be positive, negative or just informative. Mostly, it is the news editor who decides what to broadcast or print and oftentimes their decisions are influenced by their political or ideological interests. Apparently, bad news gets more coverage than good news. I believe the proportion of good news reported should be increased.

Several factors influence the decisions of the news editor. Before they publish a piece of news, the first thing they consider is whether it protects their interests. For example, a newspaper that believes in environmental protection may give excessive importance to news about global warming, Arctic ice melting or deforestation. Likewise, some newspapers have political interests. They will only publish news that benefits the political party they support. Gaining more viewers or readers is the biggest priority of all media houses. News channels compete with one another to report the news first to increase their show’s Television Rating Points (TRP). For example, the news channel that first broadcast the devastation caused by a terror attack or a widespread fire will definitely attract more viewers.

Secondly, I suppose news that is national and regional is also prioritized. News channels are inclined to cover news related to politics, sports, films, and achievements of the country in detail and just highlight the relevant happenings abroad. Thirdly, some news editors are driven by social causes such as cleanliness drive, malnutrition, and women empowerment. For example, popular newspapers like Times of India routinely highlight illegal or antisocial activities so that the government can take action.

It has also been observed that news editors tend to give more coverage to bad news. This is because many of us are naturally inclined to news that creates shock or awe. What’s more, the coverage of bad news allows people to stay informed of the threats they face. For example, a news series on stolen or hacked credit cards might be helpful for the general public to be more aware and alert.

In summary, news editors are influenced by various factors and these include political pressures and business interests. I believe it would be much better if media gave more importance to feel good news such as those concerning economic achievements, acts of bravery or scientific breakthroughs.

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Manjusha Nambiar

Hi, I'm Manjusha. This is my blog where I give IELTS preparation tips.

2 Responses

  1. seema says:

    News is an integral part of human being especially for the elders. Now a days most of the news is editorial oriented, both in visual and paper forms. There are many reasons for this type of modifications, which I am going to discuss further in this essay along with the importance of good news and the affinity towards bad news.
    To begin with, in recent times the news become so personalized that, same news have different opinions in different channels, this is mainly because of the influence of politics, or affinity towards a typical matter or power of money. The editorial board is the one who decides about the content of the article, they can modify the things according to their interest. For example, some of them belong to the political parties, in this case they will release the news in favor of their party so that it may not affect the respective party.
    Nowadays, the emersion of negative influenced news are more as compared with the past. The visual media and printed media need more circulation for their news as well as they need high rating among all other channels, so, they give more importance to the negative news like violence, theft, murder etc. The main reason for this is they know the pulse of the viewers, human beings get attracted to these types of news due to curiosity.
    Actually, the positive or good news should give more privilege such as new inventions in science and technology, achievements of the common man, bravery acts done by children and adults etc. Moreover, there should be a detailed news of the important thing happened throughout the world, not only local news. These type of good news can widen the horizon of our youngsters as well as it can change their thinking also.
    In short, news are influenced by many factors like political interest or interest towards the special thing but we should consider our youth above all and provide intellectual and ecstatic news to brighten their and nation future.

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