Differences between Commercial and Noncommercial News

The significant role news plays in a democracy is undeniable; it is a medium to inform

the public, giving the citizens the knowledge needed to be the sovereigns in a political system.

Yet, there is a limited amount of space for unlimited amounts of knowledge, so news outlets

have the power to determine the accessibility for certain information, which determines the

public’s major topics of discourse through a process called “agenda setting”. In the 15 March

2019 news, CBS, NBC and NPR highlight the same stories: the New Zealand shootings,

Trump’s first veto, the college admissions scandal, and the student climate strike. The emphasis

on these stories is not without reason; it is due to their newsworthiness. The novelty of the New

Zealand shootings, the conflict presented in Trump’s first veto, and the relevance of the climate

strike all contribute to the news story’s newsworthiness. All the highlighted stories are of

national interest and of a great magnitude in terms of its significance on the future and impact on

a number of people. However, despite covering similar stories, commercial and noncommercial

news outlets have different objectives, which leads to varied presentations of information.

Commercial news outlets’ objective is profit maximization, and the main source of their profit is

from advertising, thus they are focused on increasing the size of their audience and maximizing

their ratings through providing entertaining and newsworthy stories. Non-commercial news is

considered as a public service, and is mainly funded through subsidies or contributions,

signifying its decreased concern in audience and rating maximization. Despite commercial and

noncommercial news outlets setting similar agendas, due to their different objectives,

commercial news (CBS and NBC) tends to frame news stories as more newsworthy through the

presentation of certain groups and individuals.

 In the New Zealand shooting story, CBS and NBC frame the worshippers in the mosques

as helpless victims, which contributes to shaping a dramatized and newsworthy story due to

victims being an important group in the news. For instance, the selection of quotes includes a

victim saying, “I could hear screaming and crying, and I saw some people drop dead,” while

another claims to feel blood “splattering” on his shirt. The inability of these people to intervene

amplifies their helplessness as victims, and portrays negativity, the idea that, “If it bleeds it

leads”. Moreover, the diction used in the quotes paints a vivid auditory imagery with “screaming

and crying”, as well as visual imagery of blood “splattering” and “people [dropping] dead”. The

dramatization of the news caters towards the public’s appeal of drama and extraordinariness,

which will attract the audience to watch the news. In contrast, noncommercial news frames the

worshippers as individuals who firmly believe in their religion and are empowered by it. NPR

states that as the gunman approached one of worshippers, the worshipper offered the greeting,

“Hello, brother”, showing the worshipper’s lack of fear and his unwavering faith in his religion.

The lack of fear exemplifies empowerment, as he doesn’t succumb to the shooter’s terrorising,

and thus denying the shooter the satisfaction of generating fear amongst Muslims. The calm

depiction of the worshipper in NPR contrasts with the framing of worshippers in NBC and CBS,

which highlights commercial news’ tendency to frame groups involved as important people

going through dramatic crisis in order to increase newsworthiness.

Moreover, in both CBS and NBC news, the victimization frame of the worshippers

extends to the Muslim community, further emphasizing the presence of victims in the news story

in order to frame the story as newsworthy. In commercial news, the Muslim community is

portrayed as shaken up about the incident, which can be seen through visual imperatives
featuring Muslims crying and in shock about the casualties. Within the casualties, there are “two

people in critical condition” and children “as young as 4 years old”. The inclusion of children

evokes pathos, the emotional response of the audience, and thus convinces the audience about

the relevance and magnitude of the incidence, hence increased newsworthiness. In contrast, NPR

doesn’t mention the casualties other than the number of it, but includes different perspectives of

the story, which frames Muslims in a different light. For instance, NPR includes stories such as,

“New Zealand’s Muslim community reacts to mosque attacks,” and, “US Muslims say they

refuse to be intimidated.” The lack of fear presented in the Muslim community depicts them as a

strong willed community who will not be intimidated by a shooter whose intent is to create fear.

Despite the lack of victimization in NPR decreasing the news’ newsworthiness and potentially

the size of the NPR’s audience, noncommercial news isn’t constrained by audience or rating

maximization, and can thus fulfill the duty to represent social groups in a realistic manner instead

of a stereotyped one.

Furthermore, in commercial news, the shooter and the authorities are emphasised along

with the conflict between the two parties, thus increasing the story's newsworthiness and

entertainment value through its conflict frame. Not only does the conflict extend to groups, it

also extends to ideologies; the shooter is the personification of far right ideologies, and the police

and people are the personification of liberal ideologies. The conflict between conservatism and

liberalism is a conflict that polarizes American politics, and is a type of conflict present in many

news stories due to its unambiguity for the audience. Unambiguity and personalization both are

contributors to newsworthiness and the ease for the public to understand news stories. However,

despite its benefits, polarization and unambiguity simplifies the news so that it paints reality as
black or white, good or bad. On the other hand, noncommercial news is less constrained by the

program ratings or size of audience, therefore they are able to display the complexity of the

issue. For instance, NPR’s broadcast addresses that the “shooter is hard to place,” as he “admires

China,” “cares about the environment,” but is racist. The contradiction between his care for the

environment sets him aside from the conventional conservative, which shows the complexity of

humans, but decreases the newsworthiness of the news story.

Another group represented in the news about the shooting is tech giants, who are

personalized and portrayed through the “wrongdoing exposed” frame in commercial news to

increase the entertainment value and newsworthiness of the story. Commercial news portrays

tech giants as partially responsible for the spread of radical ideology, which is a violation to

responsible capitalism, the value that firms should have corporate responsibility towards its

workers and customers. A firm’s poor practice of responsible capitalism despite having the

ability to is a scandalous story, as not practicing responsible capitalism is considered as immoral

in the audience’s eyes. Through exposing the tech giants’ wrongdoings, the audience will gain

satisfaction from the restoration of justice, which increases the size of the audience. In addition,

CBS states that Facebook “claim to be surprised,” but that “there is no surprise. [Facebook has]

known this is a problem, and [has] had the ability to stop it.” By attributing the spread of far right

ideology to Facebook’s actions, the news outlet personalizes the story and emphasises social

media’s role in radicalization. The emphasis on social media could serve as a strategy to redirect

blame from slack gun control to technopanics, which is a prevalent issue in the modernizing

world. On the other hand, noncommercial news addresses the tech giant’s role in spread of

radical ideology, but also points out the role of social media in societal progression and
enforcement of the right of free speech. For instance, NPR selects the quote from Alex London,

an ethics professor at Carnegie Mellon University, that says social media “allows people to call

out things like police brutality,” and “gives people a much better sense of the event.” The lack of

villainization of tech giants is less dramatic, which would lead to a decreased audience size, but

the balanced argument NPR presents combats the polarization often seen in news.

In addition to the news story about the shootings, both commercial news and

noncommercial news reported on the college scandal, though NBC’s choice of individuals

involve celebrities in order to increase the entertainment value and maximize audience. NBC

features Felicity Huffman and William H. Macy in the college admission scandal, while NPR

features the involvement of “one father”. The mention of individual celebrities on NBC attributes

the scandal to individual actions, which personalizes the issue and increases its entertainment

value. Yet, the personalization may have fragmented the news, which detaches the scandal from

the wider issue, and fails to serve the mass media’s role of surveillance of contemporary events

in a democracy. In noncommercial news, there is no fragmentation of news due to its ambiguity

of the “father”. Because “father” can be applied to many, the issue of college admissions is

framed as, not an individual scandal, but a social issue, which is less entertaining than a scandal.

Plus, the lack of specificity of the person involved in the incident will redirect the audience’s

attention to the social issue instead of certain celebrity’s scandalous behaviour. Though the

redirection of the audience’s focus on the scandal would dedramatize the story, which would

negatively impact a commercial new outlet’s profits, noncommercial news outlets are able to

frame news in a less newsworthy manner due to their lesser constraints. The lack of constraints
enables NPR to fulfill its duty to serve as a provider of more objective information in the

democracy.

The depiction of the relationship between Trump and republican senators in the story

about Trump’s veto in CBS and NBC is presented in a conflict frame, a framing that increases

the newsworthiness of a story due to the inherent nature of conflict in news. The emphasis on the

conflict between the president and republicans in commercial news is seen through the word

choice that conveys the meaning of a party member voting in favour for a party they are not

conventionally affiliated with. Commercial news uses “voted against”, while NPR news uses

“crossover”. Though with similar definitions, “voted against” suggests an act of defying a notion,

while “crossover” suggests a change in stance. The tone for “voted against” is a more dramatic

one, therefore amplifies the conflict between party affiliation and personal stance; the tone for

“crossover” is more neutral, thus portrays the crossover as a natural phenomenon, and enforces

the idea of individual agency in a democracy. The dramatization of conflict in commercial news,

in addition to the conflict’s extraordinariness and its relevance to government decisions adds on

to the newsworthiness of the story, which increases the size of the audience and thus increasing

profits.

Additionally, in commercial news, the younger generation and older generation is framed

as two distinct groups, which adds on to the inherent nature of conflict in the climate strike story,

hence increased newsworthiness. The divide in generations is shown when the anchor says the

students are doing “whatever it takes to save their future”. The use of the pronoun “their” as

opposed to “us” highlights the divide between the younger generation and the older generation,

which emphasises the conflict between two groups’ objectives. Moreover, the depiction of
students in commercial news portrays them as teens who “skip school” for four months in order

to protest against government inaction. The lack of specificity of the student’s objectives frames

them as using their time inefficiently, which may lead to a disapproval and a conflict between the

two generations’ ideology. However, in noncommercial news, the students are interviewed and

framed as knowledgeable global citizens whose purpose of strike is to force the system “to face

the climate crisis and enact change”, such as “implementing the Green New Deal”, and “raising

awareness so that people will vote for those who make climate change a priority”. The

comprehensive set of information in noncommercial news prevents the fragmentation of news,

and provides the knowledge the audience need to understand the significance of the student’s

action. As a result, the conflict between the student’s ideologies and the older generation’s would

decrease, which in turn diminishes the newsworthiness, but raises the awareness of the public

and fulfills a news outlet’s duty in a democracy to inform the public.

Lastly, despite the similar agendas, there are still minor differences in the less

emphasised stories in commercial and noncommercial news, in which NBC and CBS present

more newsworthy and entertaining stories compared to NPR. For instance, CBS includes the

story about the Vessel in New York City, which is newsworthy due to its relevance, proximity

and innovative nature, and NBC includes a story about Steve Hartman's long distance journey,

which is newsworthy due to its extraordinariness. NPR includes stories that mentions

gentrification as a social issue, which is less dramatic, innovative, or extraordinary, lessening its

entertainment value for consumers, showing how commercial news includes more entertaining

and newsworthy stories.

 Overall, due to the objective of profit maximization in commercial news, the framing of

various groups and individuals are presented as more newsworthy in contrast with

noncommercial news despite setting similar agendas. The lack of restraints in noncommercial

news enables the news outlet for more freedom to perform its role as a public service in the

democracy and avoid the general criticisms of new such as the overemphasis of conflict and

oversimplification of information. For instance, the length of commercial news is half an hour, a

length that is able to retain the audience’s attention, but limits the amount of information

presented. The length of noncommercial news is longer, which permits more information or

more perspectives to be shown, preventing information to be overly simplified or framed as

black or white. Nevertheless, real objectivity and a lack of bias cannot be achieved in either

commercial news or noncommercial new. Therefore, although noncommercial news may show

more objectivity through its lesser extent of oversimplification and emphasis on conflict, the

audience should be responsible consumers of news by being critical of the information presented

in the news in order to obtain a more comprehensive set of information.