CLUTTERING THE VIEW
TV news overwhelms the audience with labels and graphics
by Deborah Potter

The "Newsforce" skit on Saturday Night Live a while back was supposed to be a joke. Mocking the overuse of graphics in television news, the producers crowded the screen with so much extraneous information that, by the end of the sketch, you could hardly see the "newscasters." Funny? You bet. But it's no longer a joke.

It's getting to the point where everything in TV news has an on-screen tag, and the packaging is so thick you can hardly find the content. Logos and labels, scores and statistics, headlines and hyperlinks-the clutter is out of control.

What started as an effort to help viewers tell stations apart by adding an ever-present identifying "bug" has wound up overwhelming viewers with TMI, too much information. It's one thing for specialized channels like all-business and all-sports networks to run on-screen tickers: their viewers often tune in just to check a particular stock or score. But the effect of adding multiple lines of ticker-style text to the average newscast is that many viewers are simply unable to process it all.

Researchers know that when words appear on screen most people read them. The "always on" time and temperature bug may be easy to ignore, but that doesn't hold true for story slugs, name ID's, and local headlines that change throughout the newscast. Each new line of text is a potential distraction, pulling the viewer's attention away from the substance of the newscast.

That's not the only reason graphics overload is so pernicious. A lot of graphics now in use are fundamentally misleading. Take my local TV weather report, which always originates in the StormCenter no matter how pleasant it is outside. Or take the "breaking news" label stations regularly slap on just about any story you can name. One cable network kept its "breaking news" banner up for almost a month last year, throughout the Florida recount, while reporters vamped for hours telling viewers that nothing much was happening.

In many local newsrooms, "breaking news" has become just another franchise, to be doled out during the daily rundown meetings at mid-afternoon. "What's our breaking news at 5:00?" a producer will ask, more than an hour before airtime. If people challenge the use of the label they're told it's legitimate, because when five o'clock rolls around they'll be telling their audience about that story for the first time. Excuse me? That makes it breaking news?

It's hard to imagine that anyone could truly buy that justification-it's breaking news because we say it is-in today's media environment. You'd have to believe that your audience is made up of Luddites who don't have a clue about what's happening in their world until you tell them. That shows either a total lack of understanding about how people get information these days-most of us are swimming in it all day long-or it shows a serious lack of respect for the people you're trying to reach.

Philadelphia anchor Larry Kane of KYW-TV knows what's really going on. In the race for ratings, stations have adopted the tactics of a carnival barker: shout louder, and maybe they'll come into your tent. "[S]tations call almost any news 'breaking' to hook the audience," Kane wrote in the Philadelphia Inquirer, "some of whom are getting wise to the scam."

Television news has become a prisoner of its own packaging. You can almost hear it: We bought those expensive graphics, and by golly, we're going to use them!

It may seem like a little thing--calling something breaking news when it's several hours old--but it's part of a detrimental pattern in many local newsrooms. Telling viewers a story can be seen "Only on Channel X" when half the sound bites come from a news conference every other station covered too. Touting a story as "New at 11" when there's not a single new development to report, not even a frame of fresh video.

At a minimum, using these kinds of labels amounts to baseless boasting, and viewers don't like it. "They take points away from you for doing that," says John Cardenas, news director at WBNS-TV in Columbus, OH.

At least one consulting firm, Frank N. Magid Associates, has begun warning clients against "over-bundling" stories, saying viewers have become increasingly skeptical about "special reports" on health or education that aren't special. "Over-franchising can get you in trouble because it can make people think your news is all come-on and not enough news," says John Quarderer, Magid's vice president for North American television.

But there's even more at stake. Viewers who feel disappointed or deceived by the way stories are presented might just stop believing what they see. And that seems like far too high a price to pay.

(This article was originally published in the American Journalism Review, June 2001)