BBC News vs. NBC News
BBC News shared UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s words on COP26 climate change. This segment only featured the press speech of the Prime Minster speaking. Typically in American news, the station would broadcast a small portion of the President’s speech and then cut back to the newsperson eventually with their own input from teleprompters. That didn’t happen in the BBC News moment. American new channels also feature introductions with background music and endings to move onto their next segment. There’s typically much more going on in US segments. To some, it could be a distracted compared to the UK’s way of sharing political news.
In this press conference with President Biden, NBC new casters have their own conversations during the segment and create segues for other stories to come. They narrate pieces of the story themselves along with President Biden. American news seems to be more of a joint effort between the story and the storytellers.
Two women from the UK were interviewed about a train crash that they experienced. Again, in American news culture, news clips and B-roll footage would be interrupted by a news presenter at every other take. This interview involved witnesses alone. There was no background voice or distraction from the narrations of the women. BBC news has more of a quiet, focused feel.
This NBC news story features Sam Johnson. He is a tech expert that created a Halloween light show for even the less fortunate to enjoy. This segment is being told as a story. It has a beginning, a middle and an end. The news presenter starts by introducing Sam and the nighttime spectacular. They go on to include interviews from people in Sam’s audience. Followed by more details about Sam’s personal life. The segment then transitions into a zoom video call with Sam Johnson and the news reporter. It ends with Sam sharing that he does the same light show process with Christmas as well.
A noticeable difference between UK and US news media is that US news seems longer, with different ways to tell one story.
As far as international news, the United States news will touch on topics of other countries too. Mainly major issues. But the true focus of US News is the US. One other major difference in US news is how politically charged and divided it can be. Some news stations are left wing and some are right. The UK news is probably less politically involved and act more as one. Every media channel is going to focus on itself and potentially bump heads with another. But stations like Fox are going to support those who support and believe in the stories they tell.
