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[Supervisor's Name]

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Nightly News

Introduction

The news media are often viewed as the fourth branch of government, a perspective that, bestows a sense of dignity, authority and importance comparable to the Supreme Court, the Presidency and the Congress. This vision of the news media as the fourth estate is not misplaced, since the news media influence the presentation and interpretation of campaigns as well as the performance evaluations of those who ultimately are elected. For generations, journalists have been vital sources of information regarding government, policies, and politicians. In recent decades a time marked by rapid change in both the political and media environments, reporters have become even more important sources of information for citizens. Smoke filled rooms where party bosses selected presidential nominees have been replaced by nationwide televised primary debates.

All of the 3 networks started standard television transmits in the 1940s. NBC started operations in 1946, tagged along by ABC and CBS in 1948. The 3 networks in the beginning had power over just a small number of local TV stations, but they speedily allied with other stations to cover approximately the entire US till the end of 1950s.

Candidates themselves have adapted by increasingly becoming individual politica1 entrepreneurs selling their messages to the voters directly; often through sophisticated, media-friendly (and citizen-friendly) appeals like John Mecain's, 'Straight Talk Express' in 2000 and Ross Perot's 'Televised Infomercials' in 1992. (Owen 2002: A generation ago, reporters were folk heroes of the Silver Screen in the hit film 'the entire President's Men', two young Washington post reporters are portrayed as courageous battlers who exposed the corruption and lies of Watergate. While reporters are less likely to receive such public adulation today, journalists continue to play an important role in keeping political candidates and government officials accountable.

Discussion

For this paper, our topic of discussion and analysis is Nightly News. The channel began to broadcast in the December of 2006, intending viewers and the audience of all shapes and sizes and at the same time caters and tailors news information of the latest degree that could be intended to us. (Bliss, 67)

Nightly News (NBC) overhauled its local news program in New York by extending it to two hours, altering the format, and hiring new anchorpersons in the hope of raising both local and national ratings to no avail. The only sure way of increasing the viewing audience is to persuade additional local stations to show a network's news program, but the NBC and CBS newscasts are already carried by virtually all of their affiliates. However, ABC, which has taken some affiliates away from the other networks as a result of its highly successful entertainment programs, is hoping to attract other affiliates by improving its news programs. Indeed ABC's recent format changes in the evening news program were made largely for this reason. Journalists can make a program more attractive to affiliates, although they do not try to do so, but they themselves have nothing to do with persuading affiliates to carry it.

With the analysis that we have ...