News and Journalism in the UK - Brian McNair

The production of news is huge business in the UK. The original idea behind it was to give the public an educative view on the news (political and cultural), not just 'a vehicle for objective facts about remote events' but to tell us 'something about the structure of the world'.
The most popular forms of news are of course Newspapers, TV and radio. The industry is always growing, take television news for example. At the beginning of the 1980's there were just 2 companies supplying news and current affairs to UK viewers; The British Broadcasting Company (BBC) and Independent Television News (ITN), each providing around 2 hours of news per day. Contrast this with today, where there are 5 providers of TV news over 8 channels. With Sky News, CNN and BBC News 24, the news is now available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and with the introduction of Sky Sports News, there is a channel devoted to round the clock sporting news.
Journalism takes on a very big responsibility, now more than ever with this kind of technology at our use. It must make information publically available, first and foremost. It must be informative to it's audience, but taking into account the competition for viewers, it must also entertain. It is one of the key social and cultural forces in our society.