2.04 Broadcast--Television

           For this blog post, I watched ABCNews from Saturday, October 5^th 2013.  I would classify this particular news show and its segments as mainly entertainment news. While they do inform the viewers of events that took place and what is going on in the world, the majority of their content is reports on entertainment, celebrity news, and the latest trends. One of the shows I watched was ABC’s Good Morning America, also called GMA, with anchors Lara Spencer, Robin Roberts, Josh Elliot, George Stephanopoulos, and Sam Champion. On the round table they reported on and discussed topics such as Britney Spears’ music video and the latest music to top the billboard chart, although later in the day, ABC also reported on political events such as the Government Shutdown and its effects on countries in the Middle East.

         As for ABC, the amount of opinion in their segments depends on the show. ABCNews has a total of five shows (GMA, World News, Nightline, 20/20, This Week) in which they cover varying subjects in segments from just a few minutes long to a full hour. I watched a 20/20 hour long report that aired on October 4^th, called “Out of Bounds” with Elizabeth Vargas and David Muir. This report was broken into three sections, one about police breaking the law, another about violent children, and a teenage girl involved in a scandal. The show was comprised of interviews with the alleged criminals, victims, experts, as well as friends and relatives of them. Although very captivating and entertaining to watch, I found the videos to be very informative as well. They only delivered facts about the case, and were unbiased when interviewing subjects. However, on the GMA segments, the anchors sit at a round table and openly discuss and express their feelings about certain topics. For example, after the report on Britney Spears’ new music video, Sam Champion remarked, “I think it’s a fun video, it’s just enough, and I agree.”

          Overall, the informative aspects of these shows are very thorough. I believe that even shows such as GMA are trust worthy and reliable despite the sometimes opinionated reporters. The show presented both facts and opinions and successfully managed to separate the two. During interviews I noted that the reporters were neutral in their questions and responses and their personal opinion on the matter was never really exposed.  I got the feeling that this was a very experienced news broadcast and the reports were professional. I also understood the point of views of everyone involved in their reports, and the fact that they always put a name and face to their sources, as opposed to just “A close friend of Britney’s”, made the information much more credible to me.