Television is on the fence of being real and reel. Real in the sense that in regards to news programs the information delivered is real and accurate. Reel as a play on words regarding a film reel, television sometimes exasperates the news in an effort to make the real seem more cinematic. In cases like those, television can be utilized as an information deliverance service, the information is being delivered but whether or not the information has been altered to make it seem more dramatic or saddening is another story.
The attacks on the World Trade Centre in 2001 were heavily displayed on news programs for weeks following the catastrophe on September 11. After a few days however the at first shaky footage had been edited and edited together with other angles from the various onlookers (King, 2005, pp 52), this is similar to what occurred earlier this year in Christchurch.
The earthquake footage of Christchurch as shown in Australia was at first a repetition of an office building collapsing and then the same loop of a church falling to pieces with the people surrounding it screaming and running in a panic. Similar to the 9/11 disaster the Christchurch disaster evolved cinematically to include several other angles, viewpoints and in some cases the addition of music so as to incite emotion in the viewers. The hyperbolic display of the news causes the broadcasts to become less of a news program and more of a television drama using news footage.
References
King, G., 2005, ‘”Just Like a Movie”?: 9/11 and Hollywood Spectacle’ in The Spectacle of the Real: from Hollywood to Reality TV and Beyond, ed. Geoff King, Intellect Books, Bristol, pp. 47-57.
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