1 of 1- paterson1
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Why Is CTV News Channel/CP24 So Focused On A Protest Tonight
Seems like all day long CTV News Channel and CP24 have been giving a lot of air time to the 12 spokespeople that were protesting the Canada Investment Summit on today and tomorrow in Toronto. At the end of every report CTV has mentioned that the organizers were planning a protest this evening outside of the hotel where all of the movers and shakers were going to have dinner.
So what gives? Why are they focusing so much on a small group outside of Toronto city hall and giving them airtime all afternoon long? It was the second story on the CTV National News with Sandie Rinaldo this afternoon. Of course CP24 has been covering this all day with even more reporting. And why mention the planned protest tonight all afternoon long?
As far as I can tell CBC News Network hasn't said anything about this at all. They are focusing on the summit and not the potential of a protest this evening.
- MJ Vancouver
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Re: Why Is CTV News Channel/CP24 So Focused On A Protest Tonight
I saw this on CBC News Network earlier today.
- paterson1
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Re: Why Is CTV News Channel/CP24 So Focused On A Protest Tonight
MJ Vancouver wrote:
I saw this on CBC News Network earlier today.
I checked CBC News Network various times this afternoon, even reviewed back on PVR and didn't see anything on it. So they weren't giving it the profile that CTV was doing. This evening CBC has had some reporting on the protest which sounds like it has broken up now. Just odd to me that CTV gave it such a high profile from about 12noon until evening and almost promoting the protest in the evening.
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Thread Starter- Shorty Wave
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Re: Why Is CTV News Channel/CP24 So Focused On A Protest Tonight
I’m going to guess that CTV News & CP24 expected the protest to be a bigger thing, but it wasn’t, and they had “invested” their resources to cover it and so stuck with it, possibly hoping it would be more newsworthy. They also probably had no Plan B!
- Saul
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Re: Why Is CTV News Channel/CP24 So Focused On A Protest Tonight
The CBC reported in the order of 1,000 people. That's actually a fairly significant number. It's a journalist's duty to present a counter-narrative to official events and statements and this certainly deserves the kind of attention it's getting. Of course, I'd hope for some media analysis that delves into the issues and differences of opinion rather than just hearing sound-bytes of speeches from both sides.
- paterson1
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Re: Why Is CTV News Channel/CP24 So Focused On A Protest Tonight
I agree it is part of a journalists duty to present the counter narrative on big events and statements. However it is not the job of journalists or a network for that matter to constantly be promoting that organizers are planning a protest later that evening. Even giving the location of the planned protest and the fact that the goal is to disrupt an event. This is what CTV News Channel and CP24 were doing all afternoon prior to the evening protests.
CBC covered the actual protests outside of the Art Gallery of Ontario last night as did CTV and CP24 which is fine, they are covering the news.
But I do take issue with a network giving a lot of airtime to a small group of organizers for hours in the afternoon. When I say a lot of airtime I am talking every half hour all afternoon long into the evening. Also the fact that reports on CTV and CP24 were promoting where the protest would be and what protesters were hoping to achieve. To me that is beyond covering an event. And in the afternoon the CTV National News with Sandie Rinaldo, the planned protest was the second story in the newscast. Poor journalism and overdone IMO.
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Thread Starter- RadioActive
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Re: Why Is CTV News Channel/CP24 So Focused On A Protest Tonight
To be honest, I think they were "hoping" (used in quotes) that there might have been some violence breaking out among the protestors and police. No one wants terrible things to happen, of course, but as a producer of TV news, I learned early on that what's called "good viz" trumps nearly everything.
The more incredible the pictures, the more it gets to air. That's why you'll sometimes see video of an accident or a fire that wasn't very serious and may not otherwise be in the line-up. But if there's spectacular viz, like flames shooting into the air or a flipped over car, it goes on the air in lieu of other things that could be even more important but don't have as good video.
A long time ago, I was working with the late Clint Nickerson. A feed came down from a serivce called VisNews that the station subscribed to, but for some reason we never got a script to go with it. But the pictures were unusual and fascinating. So Clint aired it as part of the newscast, with a script that said, "We don't honestly know what this is, but it's so unusual, we thought you should see it." And he ran 30 secs. of this puzzling stuff, because he knew people at home would say, "Wow, look at that!"
The power of pictures. For better (and often for worse) that's what TV is all about. I believe they wanted to be at the protest in case something broke out in that crowd. We'll never know, of course, but I'm glad nothing happened.