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Television Task Force

 

The TV Task Force is dedicated to documenting and analysing how television media present information in terms of language, accuracy, images and graphics. Particular focus will be paid to cross referencing news stories and comparing presentation strategies between major networks. Quotes from tv sources will be documented to stimulate discussion concerning issues of language and meaning. All of this material, including sound and video, will be fed into the central archive.

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News Making Processes

The Television Task Force acting on behalf of Media Watch has published its preliminary findings based on an analysis of UK terrestrial television over the period 7th July to 29th July 2005.

The study was divided into five areas, journalists, experts, graphics, language and accuracy. Below are some extracts from the study. If you are interested in receiving a copy of the study on DVD please get in touch via email.

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Study 1: Journalists

 

7 July 2005 Channel 5: Breaking news

Simon Meadows: "Well yes you can see the headquarters of the Metropolitan police behind me. The sign outside says ‘Working Together for a Safer London’, my gosh the police officers involved in this operation are working hard today."

 

15 July 2005 Channel 4 19:00 news

Jon Snow interview with Inayat Bunglawala, Muslim Council of Britain

Jon Snow: "Many other people in the community find it hard to believe that foreign policy can be such a big thing for somebody living in Beeston. "

 

 

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Study 2: Experts

 

7 July 2005 Channel 5: Breaking news

Will Owen: Defence Analyst

"The first thing is going to be securing the scene in terms of getting anyone who is treatable out, anybody you can save the life of. Anybody who is obviously dead, leave them there since they need to be exploited forensically."

 

14 July 2005 ITV 18:30 news

Hans Michels: Explosives expert

"They are carrying big rucksacks, because that was the size of the bomb, with its insulation."

 

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Study 3: Graphics

 

26 July 2005 ITV 18:30 news

 

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Study 4: Language

 

26 July 2005 BBC 1: 18:00 news

 

George Alagiah: "Well today’s arrests are part of the biggest anti-terror operation ever undertaken in the UK"

 

14 July 2005 ITV – 18:30 News

Adrian Britton: "If Mohammed Sadik Khan can go unnoticed, how many more people are there like him, leading lives that look respectable, but silently waiting to commit carnage."

 

24 July 2005 ITV – 18:30 News

Emma Murphy: "Riding the rapids in North Wales, a laughing Shehzad Tanweer sits towards the front of the craft, as ringleader Sadik Khan raises a two finger salute to the camera…noone will ever know if an acknowledgement of victory or peace."

 

29 July 2005 BBC 1 ‘Questions of Security’ 22:00

David Davis: "The attack of Al-Qaeda the whole thrust of it, as Charlie Faulkner just said is against everything we stand for. It’s not for a particular individual aim, it is against everything we stand for and you cannot negotiate away the values of an entire civilisation."

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Accuracy

 

22 July 2005 Channel 4 19:00 News

Jon Snow: "A tall asian man shot dead this morning at Stockwell tube"

 

23 July 2005 BBC 1 – 10:00 news

Darren Jordan: "The police say the man’s death was a tragedy, but in a statement said he had emerged from a house under surveillance and his behaviour had been suspicious".

 

26 July 2005 Channel 4: 1900 news

Sir Ian Blair: "There has been a terrible mistake but it doesn’t mean that anyone has done anything wrong in all of that."

 

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Other Research conducted by TV Task Force

Contributed by Correspondent Sally Brown

1 August 2005 BBC2 – 21:00 The New Al-Qaeda

Re: The video statement made by the ‘Military spokesman for Al-Qaeda in Europe’, Jamel Amidan that linked the Madrid train bombings to Spain’s military support of the American led coalition in Iraq.

Peter Taylor: "There were seismic repercussions. In the election the government fell. Its successor declared that Spanish troops would be brought home from Iraq. Terrorism had worked".

In fact the socialist party had promised in it’s election campaign before the bombings to bring troops home if elected.

Help with deciphering the concluding statement would be appreciated, please post your comments on the forum.

Peter Taylor: "The Madrid train bombings caught the intelligence services off guard, just as Casablanca did, they they were looking the other way at the old Al-Qaeda not the new. This is the fundamental change in the so called war on terror. What worries the intelligence community today is not that Madrid and Casablanca were Al-Qaeda as we have known it, but that they were not."

 

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14 July 2005 East London Mosque, Whitechapel

Re: TV news team observe the two minute silence