Information program

An information program is a television or radio program in which news of public interest is told. Information programs are reasoned constructions linked to reality events: 'television constructs an informative reality based on events that occur in society. He does not invent reality as in fiction, but rather interprets it with his conditions, interests and objectives" (Cebrián Herreros, 2004: 1 5). On television things can be told in different ways, which are classified into different genres and formats, and all of this is usually mixed in news programs. An example of a genre is news, and an example of a format is what is known as News News or Weekly Report.

The classification and distinction of genres and formats is used to be able to make an assessment of the information and know how to perceive when quality is neglected, and moves away from the idea of informing to become entertainment or seeking the sensational for the purpose to obtain a larger audience.

Informative programs on radio according to the message, the authors Muñoz and Gil (1994: 48) consider it as “the set of content that with a certain title time are broadcast on the radio, integrating into the programming, generally with a style own". And according to its characteristics, Merayo (2000: 235-239) considers that the main factors of news programs are: temporality, planned time limits, periodicity and title, radio broadcasting, meaningful message, ideation and unity of criteria and adaptation to channel.. Therefore, according to these authors, radio news programs are “the radio time dedicated to the development of news content that is disseminated through the radio under the same title and unit of criteria, in a planned and limited time, with a regular frequency. fixed, its own style and whose shape adapts to the specific demands of the channel; which makes the informative program easily recognizable by listeners.”

Origin of television programs, news

With the origin of cinema, the initiative to film informative notes was latent, in such a way that the first film was the departure of the workers from a factory, thus showing the informative capabilities of cinema as such.

In this way, once technically established, cinema was a transmitter of news. Thus, the first film companies established teams for the production of film newsreels, which have the characteristic of periodicity and multiplicity - in some cases - to make said information "local", offering content of interest for specific areas and especially in the language of these populations.

Radio also included information programs from its origins.

With the arrival of television and the end of World War II, film news programs ceased to be relevant. Television promised immediacy in several senses: news at a closer time and location at home.

The first television news event was in August 1928. Station WGY simultaneously broadcast on radio and TV (WGY, 2XAF and 2XAD) Mr. Al Smith, presidential candidate for the Democratic Party, accepting the nomination. It was the first live signal and the first news event.

Spain

Spanish television was born in Spain as a National Radio service, integrated into the General Directorate of Radio Broadcasting. The first news programs that were broadcast in Spain, in the summer of 1952, were a summarized copy of the Diario Spoken of Radio Nacional de España (the "Parte") at two o'clock in the afternoon. The first TVE news presenter listened to the news on the radio before standing in front of the cameras and repeating what he had just heard. On October 28, 1956, Televisión Española began its regular broadcasts from its small studios in Madrid.

Informative television begins to develop in Spain under the model imposed by the NO-DO: the documentary newsreel, with strong ideological/political content, which was compulsorily shown in all movie theaters before the screening of the feature film. News was recorded on the street using film cameras. These news programs were made up of a series of news without images, others already covered but referring to news from at least two days ago and, finally, a series of timeless reports.

On September 15, 1957, Spanish Television's "Telediario" was broadcast for the first time from the studios on Paseo de La Habana in Madrid. The news program began to modernize and presented another image, although it maintained the blank format and black and film support. Censorship continues to be maintained because the political authorities of the moment quickly discover the medium's capacity for social impact.

At first, the Telediario journalists did their work from the editorial desk, but at the end of the 70s, the first portable video devices appeared and the newscasts adopted the European model: half an hour long and a structured characterized by the division of news into sections. From there, journalists could go out into the streets to film their own stories.

In the 1980s, the switcher was released, a device that made it possible to display several video signals in the same image. This device premiered on TVE's Newscast. With this, the first effects of the small screen that were used as part of the program header were shown.

In the 1990s, with the deregulation of state networks, news programs extended their duration to one hour. Thanks to this extension, news programs can include advertising spots, since the Community Directive prohibits the broadcast of advertising in spaces of this nature whose duration is less than half an hour. The weather section always aroused great interest among viewers, and during the 1990s, the section dedicated to Weather, which included the News, became a specific space.

Chile

The first news programs on Chilean television were on Channel 9 of the University of Chile: Primer Plano (1961) with Patricio Bañados and Chile TV (1962) with Patricio Bañados and Diana Sanz. In 1964, Channel 13 was a pioneer in creating a press department and in August of that year El Repórter Esso debuted, hosted by Pepe Abad, which ran from Monday to Friday (originally at 9:00 p.m., then at 10:00 p.m.) with a duration of 15 minutes and was a foreign license, so they had access to images of CBS in the United States from the United Press agency (UPI).

Later, in 1965, The Secret History of the Great News appeared, the first report program broadcast by Channel 13. By 1968 the news programs were Canal's News Screen 9 and El Repórter Esso, the first being replaced by El continental, and the Channel 13 news program was replaced that same year by Martini al Instante with César Antonio Santis. Martini instantly moved to the nascent TVN in 1970, so it was replaced on Channel 13 by Teletrece with Pepe Abad, and editions were also born at other times such as Telenoche and Teleclosure. Martini instantly is replaced by Telediario and then 60 Minutos. In 1975 Santis returned to host Teletrece, which at the time ran at 9:15 p.m. Channel 9 also changes its news, becoming known as Nuevediario. There were Online Telecanal, UCV Television news from UCV Television, This is news from TV+, News on the Network, Now news from Mega and Meganoticias Plus from Mega Plus.

Types of formats

The information on television is shown through programs, each of them has different structures, which is what is known as formats. The formats sometimes correspond to the traditional genres of written journalism, such as the news, the report or the interview. The most used formats are:

• Telediario or daily information (in Spain), usually called news, news, news or noti (in Spanish). According to the Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy, it is the "information of the most outstanding events of the day, broadcast by television". Newspapers are usually daily and are broadcast in several editions, some of which are coincidental with the moments of the greatest audience (in the envelope or noon and in the star schedule). They deal with the current news preferably. They would be equivalent to the newspapers of the written press. Open chains usually issue information of general interest. The news shows a reflection of what happens in the world, and becomes news, in narration. An audio-visual speech about it is shown in the news. In the preparation of the news, we must bear in mind the multitude of subjective elements that enter human perception, the selection of elements, approaches, data, points of view, and the ideological conditions of each medium.

• Information flash: also called last-minute news. It's a brief news that interrupts the broadcasting program. It is used to immediately give the first data of some latest news and with great relevance or social impact. Sometimes it is used to attract the attention of the viewer and highlight the importance of that information, it is usually announced through a specific mask with musical images and sounds. But flashes are also used for advertising breaks, which receive the name of Informative Advances, which advance the content of the telediario. If the news is of great importance, the flash can give rise to a special informative program.
• Special edition: These are programs that emit a different day from the usual or that have a greater duration because they revolve around an important or significant event, such as when they are times of political elections, when a catastrophe of great relevance occurs or when a sporting event of great significance takes place. They usually include interviews, reports, debates, press conferences. To this end, large technical and human resources are deployed, obtaining the largest audience of the year.

• Interview programmes: the interview is a very broad genre, not only is it about asking a character, if not, which is a way to report about a person. Through the interview you can discover new aspects of a particular sector, and you can also delve into the knowledge of that person: data on your personal or professional life, some concerns about the interviewee. Television is the ideal means for the informative interview. Interviews can be classified in three ways: informative, opinion and personality interviews.

• Reporting programs: This type of programme requires a large deployment of human and technical means of production. The report is a genre that encompasses all genres and is usually written by a reporter. They are stories of a certain currentity, with quotes from the characters, small interviews, data, and that raise a specific theme drawing certain conclusions. So, you have some news, interview, opinion. The topics of the reports are discussed in depth and in detail. The frequency with which this type of program is broadcast is usually weekly, although there are formats that broadcast daily. It is a space recorded in advance and features real characters and space.
• Great documentaries: each documentary deals with a specific theme, but there are many thematic possibilities to talk about: nature, science, geography, history, art, sport, etc. They are reports of less current but with greater depth, which refer to more specialized or more studied topics, and have the participation of more experts. There are important television networks that produce documentaries on some topic of interest. For years there have been documentary films that have been used in the cinema, such as documentary films about the lives of known people, such as a documentary about the career of Alejandro Sanz.
• Programmes of opinion and/or debate: These programs tend to occupy the highest time slots, and are run by journalists with great professional prestige. In recent years, there have been numerous programmes of debates, particularly political and sporting. This genre, usually, has a greater ease of execution and only needs to be coordinated by guests. The moderation of this program by the journalist must be agile and neutral, without entering the debate, but by giving the floor and alternating topics not to bore the audience. The periodicity is very varied, it can be once a week or every day.

• Infotainment. With this Anglo-Saxon term informationinformation, and entertainment, entertainment), is designated to those programs that, based on a news structure, address topics that do not usually have a place in them (consumption, fashion, beauty, pink chronicle or lamp, events, etc.). It is worth mentioning the so-called American television tabloids, assimilable, to great features, to the sensational tabloids of the written press.

News selection

First of all, the news is a relevant fact that is interesting to communicate and that is interesting to receive. The news is selected based on criteria of immediacy (in time and space). In American journalism this procedure is called McLurg's Law, which is based on the premise: "the importance of an event decreases with distance from the place where it occurred."

Those responsible for each area prepare a previous minute of their section, although finally it is the editor of the news program who accepts the proposals and fits the order and times for each information.

The criteria for inclusion in the news are slightly different than those for its selection, while in each area the information is evaluated according to strictly professional criteria, the editor takes into account other aspects that refer to the pace of the program, opportunity politics, competitions with other channels, possible commercial impact, and ultimately, everything that affects the editorial line of the medium.

Many events occur in the world and not all of them have a place in the media. For this reason, newsworthiness criteria have been developed to determine when information is news.

The newsability criteria are:

• News: it has to be a recent and new fact since it is part of the intrinsic meaning of the word news, that is, it is a current event. It's a temporary factor.
• Imprevisibility, rarity: the strangest or rarer an event results, the more possibilities it will have to become news. For example, a natural disaster.
• Implication: this is the magnitude of the event, that is, both the number of objects and subjects involved in the news fact. For example, large-scale demonstrations.
• Proximity: the distance to which the potential recipient of the event is found, as well as another type of affective bond. For example, drought for the inhabitants of southern Spain). It is a criterion of closeness to the public.
• Personal survey: are the people who can be able to produce news with their public performances.
• Conflict: An event that causes discrepancies between two or more collectives and whose consequences affect a large number of people. For example, a war.
• Negativity: the news feeds on a negative basis as they raise greater interest. For example, a traffic accident with dead.
• Suspense: intrigue in the information published. What will happen?
• Consequences: the impact and future effects of the event. For example, global warming.

• Progress: values and resources of the human being. For example, scientific innovations. Progress has to be dealt with periodically with specific references.

Once the news that will be broadcast on the news has been selected - based on the previous criteria -, the process of preparing the news begins. In this sense, we will have to take into account the order established by the inverted pyramid - the most important information is placed at the beginning of the piece and the least important at the end - as well as answer the 5 North American Ws: What, Who, Where, When and Why (what, who, where, when and why). For a long time, only the 5 Ws were answered, but in recent years, How has gained prominence. When working in an audiovisual medium, it must be taken into account that the syntax must be simple but correct, using the subject + predicate structure and short sentences, since, unlike other media, the transience of Television does not allow the message to be reread.

Once on the set, the presenter reads the text of the news with the help of the teleprompter - an acrylic mirror located in front of the camera lens that allows light to pass through. The background of the news is usually blue since it is a relaxing color, which allows you to delve into the program. The journalist's position must be rigorous, objective and impartial. According to Andrew Boyd: “The ideal qualities for a newscaster are based on personal strength and authority, combined with experience, personality and charisma: authority, credibility, clarity, warmth/closeness, personality, professionalism, good voice, good presence.”

Structure of a newscast, newscast or newscast

A television news program has a structure that has been approximately maintained throughout history. It is a program in which a large number of people participate, since great coordination is necessary and it must be carried out at high speed.

The news is broadcast in thematic blocks. In this way, balance in interest is ensured, since each block begins with the most important news of the day in that area. Furthermore, the grouping of news from the same thematic core prevents the viewer from getting confused. Not all news items have the same complexity or difficulty when producing them, some are very simple and others require greater production, more time since they include interviews, explanations, etc.

The news block of a news program coincides with the concept of "section" coined in the written press. In fact, the news takes the structure of newspapers as a model. The cover or first page is equivalent to the headlines or summary of the news. Each block is identified with special characteristics on the screen. These features appear in the form of flaps, thermometers, infographic overlays, and other procedures. In this way the separation bursts appear with a neutral sound background.

In order for the news program to move forward, it is necessary to follow a series of stages, which are:

1. Drafting meeting: hours before the program's broadcast, the director, the director, the director, the coordinator and the editors meet to decide which news will be included in the telediary, which approach will be given to them, the duration of each news and the order of them. Many times the day before we know some news that will be spoken of because they are programmed acts. The director is the person responsible for performing the escaleta with the news that will be offered to the spectators. Sometimes, there are news that were going to be put on the news, but that in the end they don't come in, because there may be more important news. This can happen once the TV is started.
2. Pre-production of the news: It is the realization of these news, the search for data, the contrast of the information they have, to see that means are to be needed to obtain images. At this stage the exact duration of the news is assigned.
3. Production: This part is about recording the interviews necessary for the informative, in each place it is chosen that images are to be recorded, it takes note of the statements and points out the part that seems interesting to use it as “total”. Once you have obtained all the necessary information and images, you go to the next interview or place.
4. Postproduction: This stage consists of ordering all the material and selecting the one to be used to be able to start editing, ordering the recorded images, incorporating the audio tracks for each video, the visual effects as can be the casts of entry and output of a scene, color balance, filters and labels, color correction and adding the starting titles and final credits.
5. Preparation for the realization: the performer receives the script with all the pieces, and makes a part where he writes the duration, the last words of each news to know when each one ends, the signs and the place where they should be placed, etc.
6. Realization: consists of the structure of the telediario.

The structure of the news programs, in general, is as follows:

The weather can be a section that is included within the television or newscast.

The hosts, cameras, program directors are connected with control, in such a way that sometimes they receive breaking news, the order that they are going to give way to a correspondent, or new information, which causes the order of the news block may vary. The director is also in control, who decides which camera is turned on at that moment (whether camera 1 because a presenter is going to speak and they want a close-up, or camera 2 to focus on the table on the set), and introduces the videos at the exact moment.

Reviews

Faced with the problem of news sensationalism and the proliferation of falsified news, many of them have lost their rigor. In response, media companies have been forced to take legal measures to avoid degrading the quality of their information. For example, many companies have boards or departments in which representatives monitor the gifts received by various companies, political organizations, governments and NGOs aimed at giving favorable impressions to those in charge of offering the information. These are then returned to their senders accompanied by thank you notes. On certain occasions, such as holidays, these evaluators have more work than normal as they receive a large amount of gifts that must be rejected such as tickets, expensive products, electronic items, among others. Whether this mechanism is present or not, currently in many media companies any gift given by someone outside the company itself generates suspicion. In many countries there are laws that regulate the disclosure of information and citizen complaint mechanisms. Also, most news programs tend to publish news that shows opinions in favor or against certain economic, governmental or social groups depending on the ideological position of the communications company, giving rise to the tendency to incorporate different points of view in some. cases. And after all, bad practices must be combated through journalistic ethics, since it is the audience that ends up paying when the information is fixed.