“Our Top Story”: Analysis of News Conventions in the NBC Nightly News E

News broadcasts have been a staple in the lives of many long before the invention of the television. As technology changed, the place of the newscaster shifted from the radio to the television screen. These earliest years of television news did not adhere to the same conventions as the modern newscast. Moving from radio to television as the major source of broadcast news brought on new challenges. In order to do so, networks were forced to experiment with how stories and new anchors would be presented to their television audiences (Conway, 2007). Newscasters who were once popular among audiences could no longer be certain that this popularity would remain. Audiences who had once been captivated by the voice of an unseen man being transmitted over the airwaves were beginning to lose interest watching a man, eyes down, reading prepared lines from a card (Conway, 2007). It became apparent that the format so often used for radio newscast would no longer be sufficient when applies to a visual medium like television. As years went by, television networks began trying new ways to captivate their audiences once more. In this early period of news broadcasting many of today’s familiar conventions would be developed often times through experimentation. The use of graphics, video footage, images and other visual aids to the anchor on set were all developed in some of the earliest years of television news (Conway, 2007). These developments could then be employed as supplementary additions to the anchors delivery of the news and give the audience something more to view on their screen. The use of visual aids allowed for newscasts to features instances â€Å"where the newscaster appeared on camera, other times his voice guided the viewer ... ...asey, N., Calvert, B., French, L., & Lewis, J. (2008). Television studies: The key concepts. (2 ed., pp. 183-189). New York, NY: Routledge. Conway, M. (2007). A guest in our living room: The television newscaster before the rise of the dominant anchor. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 51(3), 457-478. Engstrom, E., & Ferri, A. J. (1998). From barriers to challenges: Career perceptions of women tv anchors. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly , 75(4), 789-802. NBC news (producer). (2013, February 8). NBC nightly news [video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1LS7zthsHc NBC news (producer). (2013, February 22). NBC nightly news [video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1sEkQj2jWc NBC news (producer). (2013, September 30). NBC nightly news [video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kT_Pl7LjVow