P2 - Explaining the media platforms for news distribution

Explaining the media platforms for news distribution.

A traditional way in which the news has been distributed for around 2000 years is by newspapers. Newspapers are written publications of current events and are usually distributed daily or weekly. The news they generally cover can be ranged from politics, business, sport, art, general opinion-based articles and much more, but these topics are the most common in newspapers. They are published on low-cost paper called newsprint. 

Another traditional way in which news has been distributed is by Television. News channels have been part of TV for a long time now. The BBC launched their daily news channel in 1954 and is consumed nationally everyday by millions nationwide. It is very similar to a newspaper as it would broadcast similar current events which would be published in the papers. There are scheduled news programmes of a morning and evening on ITV, BBC, Channel 4 and many other Freeview channels. However, in recent years Sky have created many channels one being Sky News where current events are broadcasted 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Radio is another way in which the news has been traditionally broadcasted. BBC radio 2 is the most popular radio news distribution channel in the UK with a monthly audience of roughly 15.1 million. I feel that over the years, radio news channels have adapted to the introduction of cars and based their channels around this, for example, radio stations have specific traffic travel sections of the broadcasts as most listeners are travelling whilst listening to the radio.

The evolution of news distribution.

In recent years, the way in which news has been distributed has drastically changed. The introduction of social media has re-invented the way news can be seen. Providers of the news such as BBC, Sky news, ITV and many more have official social media accounts where they post current events for anyone to see. Social media platforms are free to use and anyone around the world can easily access their page to find out the latest news. However, there is a downside to social media, anyone can post on the sites and there is no regulatory board, so people can tweet fake news for anyone to see. Therefore, it sometimes may not be reliable.

Another platform in which the news is distributed a lot more recently is on the newspaper websites. National newspapers such as the Daily Mail, The Daily Mirror and the Guardian all have websites where they post very similar content to what is in the newspapers however, put videos and live news reports on the sites. This has effected how we consume news as it has very much went from people consuming newspapers regularly to reading current events on their smart phones and tablets as it is easily accessible and has more than a basic newspaper.