The Story So Far

The reasons for the promotion of the anecdote and personal story, are both broadly cultural and political but also specifically economic. They relate to emerging patterns of globalisation and corporatisation. Broadly speaking, the British media is following American patterns in pursuit of American sponsorship. American capital is thereby reproducing the American pattern of decontextualized story-telling.

We find that with the British News at Ten the new initiatives in broadcasting style
...is part of a new-look bulletin, which will, in the words of one ITN executive, become `more formulaic with a more distinctive human interest approach'. Viewers, it seems, like certainty both in the format of a bulletin and the person who presents it. Lessons have bee learnt from American TV news by senior ITN managers such as chief executive Bob Phillis, editor-in-chief Stewart Purvis and News at Ten producer Nigel Dacre (brother of Paul, the new editor of the Daily Mail) (Brooks, 1992, p.69).

The reason for the convergence which American styles of story-telling are addressed later.

By 1994, ITV companies must become minority shareholders in ITN. American TV companies, CNN, CBS and NBC, have already cast their eyes over ITN, though only one of them is likely to take a stake. It is no coincidence that News at Ten will have a more of an American look — the single anchor, like Dan Rather or Peter Jennings, for example.

In short, ITN and News at Ten are being dressed up to be more attractive not just to viewers, but also to prospective buyers.(p. 69)

In America it is obvious that the "story" is being employed specifically to close off sustained political and cultural analysis. John Simpson (1992) recently wrote about "the closing of the American media". In this closure, the "story" took pride of place in cutting America off from international news and political analysis. Simpson analyzed the CBS news.

After reports on drought in the western United States and the day's domestic political news, the rest of CBS's news broadcast was devoted to a regular feature, `Eye on America'. This evening's item was about a man who was cycling across America with his son, a sufferer from cerebral palsy. It was designed to leave you with a warm feeling, and lasted for three minutes, 58 seconds; longer than the time devoted that night to the whole of the rest of the world.

It is no surprise that soon there will almost certainly be no American television network correspondent based anywhere in the southern hemisphere. Goodbye Africa; goodbye most of Asia; goodbye Latin America. (p. 9)