Did the “Bunshun Cannon” Change TV Reporting? Why the newsroom has become a “scavenger hunt”?

The hit drama “Elpis: Hope or Disaster” (Kansai TV/Fuji TV) was also set in a news station of a commercial TV station. Many people probably thought it was “cool” to see the news center and the reporters covering the news. That drama depicted the TV news scene quite realistically.

In fact, however, the real “news center” is a little different. Would it surprise you if I told you that today’s TV news production is like a “scavenger hunt”? And did you know that it was the “Bunshun-bomb” that triggered the “scavenger hunt”?

I am a TV person who has been making news and wide shows at a TV station in Tokyo for more than 25 years. I would like to introduce the real news scene to you all.

The stations are now focusing on their Internet “search units.

First, let me explain what I mean by “scavenger hunts. The other day I was having a drink with a senior staff member of a news bureau, and we got into this conversation. The news desk is getting busier and busier these days, and if you work overnight, you don’t even have time to sleep. …… In fact, TV news reporting is now much busier than it used to be.

In the past, TV news used to only have to produce “news to be broadcast,” but now they have to produce a lot of “news not to be broadcast.

News for Internet news sites and distribution services such as ABEMA. And when we say broadcast, we produce not only terrestrial news, but also BS news. It is almost like we are producing news 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

And yet, the budget for news production continues to decrease. From a firsthand experience, budget cuts have been continuing since about 15 years ago when the Lehman Shock occurred. And it has become even more difficult to go to the news due to measures against corona infection and other factors. Therefore, it has become a “scavenger hunt” to produce a large number of news stories with a low budget.

Rather than increasing the number of reporters, stations are now focusing on increasing the number of units that “search for information on the Internet and borrow footage shot by ordinary people on social networking services.

First reports of fires, disasters, and accidents are often faster than “tweets” on social networking services, and since footage is often taken at the decisive moment, we have a “search unit” in the news center. They then enter various keywords such as “fire” or “incident” into special software and keep searching for images and information on the Internet.

In this way, news programs and wide shows borrow “news they did not cover themselves” and broadcast it. It is now commonplace to broadcast as news what newspapers, magazines, and Internet news outlets have reported, in the form of “according to 00 Newspaper” and so on.

In fact, in the past, this was never allowed. We were taught that it was natural for news programs to “back up” what they reported, that is, not to report what other media reported unless they themselves had confirmed the content through their own reporting. However, we have come to realize that “borrowed news” in the form of “according to the 00 Shimbun” or “according to the Weekly 00” is now being aired on news programs.

The “Bunshun-bomb” that became a major trigger.

VTRs and studio boards are filled with “borrowed images and videos,” including “viewer-provided videos” taken by the general public, SNS videos, photos taken by newspapers, “image photos” purchased from photo services such as “Afro,” and even free illustrations from “Irasto ya. The TV news is now full of “borrowed news”.

It is a sad state of affairs that TV news can now be called “borrowed news. And I believe that the trigger for this kind of “borrowing competition to produce news” was when the “Bunshun Bannon” became a hot topic, and it became commonplace to broadcast news by borrowing materials from Bunshun because there were so many scoops from Bunshun Weekly.

Until then, it had been quite difficult to borrow video or audio tapes from the weekly magazine or to obtain permission to film and broadcast the magazine’s articles. However, Bunshun Weekly was willing to lend us material for a fee. For Bunshun, it was a win-win situation, as it was both good publicity and profitable.

Now, I hope you have understood that the real TV news production scene has become a “scavenger hunt” and that the “Bunshun Gun” was the catalyst for this.

For a behind-the-scenes look at the news and wide show production sites, as well as the reality of TV stations in general, including variety shows, dramas, announcers, etc., please refer to “Who Made TV Rot?　(Kobunsha, February 22). If you are interested, please take a look.

Who made rotten TV?　Verification and Consideration by the “Middleman”” (Kobunsha) is here.