What’s more informative: news broadcasts or articles?


Mr. Bowne

  Broadcasts largely focus on the “how” and “what” aspect of each issue, and articles add the “why” to the mix. 

Have you ever gotten your daily news from both a news broadcast and a written article? 

   While you may not realize it, the tiny snippets of news that you may get from one of the two can widely influence your take on the reported event.

   News broadcasts and news articles, while they do report the same topic, utilize different tactics to deliver the news to their audiences. 

   The next time that you watch the nightly news in the comfort of your own couch, you may notice that news anchors largely use locals around the area of the event to help with their reporting. 

   The broadcast typically starts with a regular news anchor summarizing what had happened, and going over who was involved. And of course, it then gets handed over to the reporter on the scene where they explain more in depth of the story. 

   After giving a little more information on the event, some reporters tend to shift their focus to locals who are passing by the location. These people who just happened to pass by then give their take on the issue. 

   When watching a news broadcast, it also needs to be noted that these types of broadcasts tend to cover multiple topics in a short amount of time. 

   Therefore, a single news topic isn’t really informative in terms of the details of the story. A news broadcast of an event or issue is more generalized and vague compared to an article that is reporting the same topic. 

   The role of a news broadcast is to simply keep their audience informed on the multiple issues going on around the world, but as a result doesn’t have the time to go into detail.

   Take the topic of the recent social distancing protests as an example. News broadcasts showed live footage of the massive protests taking place in multiple cities of the U.S. With an on the scene reporter, they interviewed protesters on why they think the lockdown should be taken down.

   On the other hand, news articles can go very in depth of the topic. When reading an article, the imagination tends to come into play more than when you watch a broadcast. 

   While broadcasts have the luxury of using live video footage to appeal to your brain, reading an article requires a little more effort on the reader’s part.

   Articles give very detailed and precise information that are often based on charts, polls, or interviews from officials in a professional field. 


   Each reporter who writes an article often shares their own opinion in their writing as well, especially in opinion articles. So while the reader is given the full story of the event, they can also be slightly influenced by the direction that the writer takes it in. 

   Moving back into the quarantine protest topic, an article written by the New York Times broke it down as to what’s driving the protestors to take action during this pandemic. Using the results of polls from various sources, this article explained exactly what types of Americans would go out and protest. 

   Their polls also elaborated on just how many Americans were concerned of reopening states too early, with the percentage given as 75%. 

   Speaking solely on how each type of reporting affects the audience, viewers watching a broadcast formulate their opinion based on what they see and hear from the live footage. Readers reading an article bases their opinion on the writer’s chosen perspective of the topic in addition to the facts and statistics.