Synthesis Essay: Free-Response

Synthesis Essay: Free-Response

Suggested Time during Testing– 40 min. (In AP Language and Literature, you will need to write three essays in two hours, so 40 min. is one/third of your time for the essay section.)

We will not be doing this – this paper’s purpose is to practice your writing skills and to prepare for success on the writing tasks you will have in the future.

Directions: The following prompt is based on the accompanying six sources.

This question requires you to synthesize a variety of sources into a coherent, well-written essay. Synthesis refers to combining the sources and your position to form a cohesive, supported argument and accurately citing sources. Your argument should be central; the sources should support this argument. Avoid merely summarizing sources.

Introduction:

Television news broadcasts are shows that provide current information about events or issues that are important to the viewers. What most viewers fail to realize is thatdecisions are made at the network level about what news to include or exclude in addition to the weather, traffic, and breaking news(current and relevant) in order to best capture the interest of its target audience.

Assignment:

Read the following sources carefully. Develop a position in response to the following: What are the most important considerations the television networks should take into account when making decisions about what to televise its viewership?Synthesize at least four of the sources for support.

You may refer to the sources by their titles (Source A, Source B, etc.) or by the description in parentheses.

Source A (Postman)

Source B (Thoreau)

Source C ( Tool)

Source D (API)

Source E (Butler)

Source F (Pew Research)

Source A

The News ~Neil Postman

Neil Postman was a media critic and a professor at New York University, where he taught for more than 40 years. He called his field “media ecology” and his great concern was the effect of television on Americans.

While the form of a news broadcast emphasizes tidiness and control, its content can best be described as chaotic. Because time is so precious on television, because the nature of the medium favors dynamic visual images, and because the pressures of a commercial structure require the news to hold its audience above all else, there is rarely any attempt to explain issues in depth or place events in their proper context. The news moves nervously from a warehouse fire to a court decision, from a guerrilla war to a World Cup match, the quality of the film often determining the length of the story. Certain stories show up only because they offer dramatic pictures. Bleachers collapse in South America: hundreds of people are crushed—a perfect television news story, for the cameras can record the face of disaster in all its anguish. Back in Washington, a new budget is approved by Congress. Here there is nothing to photograph because a budget is not a physical event; it is a document full of language and numbers. So the producers of the news will show a photo of the document itself, focusing on the cover where it says: “Budget of the United States of America.” Or sometimes they will send a camera crew to the government printing plant where copies of the budget are produced. That evening, while the contents of the budget are summarized by a voice-over, the viewer sees stacks of documents being loaded into boxes at the government printing plant. Then a few of the budget’s more important provisions will be flashed on the screen in written form, but this is such a time-consuming process—using television as a printed page—that the producers keep it to a minimum. In short, the budget is not televisable, and for that reason its time on the news must be brief. The bleacher collapse will get more minutes that evening.

With priorities of this sort, it is almost impossible for the news to offer an adequate account of important events. Indeed, it is the trivial event that is often best suited for television coverage. This is such a commonplace that no one even bothers to challenge it. Walter Cronkite, a revered figure in television and anchorman of the CBS Evening News for many years, has acknowledged several times that television cannot be relied on to inform the citizens of a democratic nation. Unless they also read newspapers and magazines, television viewers are helpless to understand their world, Cronkite has said. No one at CBS has ever disagreed with his conclusion, other than to say, “We do the best we can.”•

Source B

from “Where I Lived, and What I Lived For” ~Henry David Thoreau

If I should only give a few pulls at the parish bell-rope, as for a fire, that is, without setting the bell, there is hardly a man on his farm in the outskirts of Concord, notwithstanding that press of engagements which was his excuse so many times this morning, nor a boy, nor a woman, I might almost say, but would forsake all and follow that sound, not mainly to save property from the flames, but, if we will confess the truth, much more to see it burn, since burn it must, and we, be it known, did not set it on fire — or to see it put out, and have a hand in it, if that is done as handsomely; yes, even if it were the parish church itself…

And I am sure that I never read any memorable news in a newspaper. If we read of one man robbed, or murdered, or killed by accident, or one house burned, or one vessel wrecked, or one steamboat blown up, or one cow run over on the Western Railroad, or one mad dog killed, or one lot of grasshoppers in the winter — we never need read of another. One is enough. If you are acquainted with the principle, what do you care for a myriad instances and applications? To a philosopher all news, as it is called, is gossip, and they who edit and read it are old women over their tea. Yet not a few are greedy after this gossip.

Source C

"Vicarious"

Writer(s): Adam Jones, Daniel Carey, Maynard Keenan, Justin Chancellor
Copyright: Toolshed Music, BMG Gold Songs

Eye on the TV
'cause tragedy thrills me
Whatever flavour
It happens to be like;
Killed by the husband
Drowned by the ocean
Shot by his own son
She used the poison in his tea
And kissed him goodbye
That's my kind of story
It's no fun 'til someone dies
Don't look at me like
I am a monster
Frown out your one face
But with the other
Stare like a junkie
Into the TV
Stare like a zombie
While the mother
Holds her child
Watches him die
Hands to the sky crying
Why, oh why?
'cause I need to watch things die
From a distance
Vicariously I, live while the whole world dies
You all need it too, don't lie
Why can't we just admit it?
Why can't we just admit it?
We won't give pause until the blood is flowing
Neither the brave nor bold
The writers of stories sold
We won't give pause until the blood is flowing
I need to watch things die
From a good safe distance

Vicariously I, live while the whole world dies
You all feel the same so
Why can't we just admit it?
Blood like rain come down
Drawn on grave and ground
Part vampire
Part warrior
Carnivore and voyeur
Stare at the transmittal
Sing to the death rattle
La, la, la, la, la, la, la-lie
Credulous at best, your desire to believe in angels in the hearts of men.
Pull your head on out your hippy haze and give a listen.
Shouldn't have to say it all again.
The universe is hostile. so Impersonal. devour to survive.
So it is. So it's always been.
We all feed on tragedy
It's like blood to a vampire
Vicariously I, live while the whole world dies
Much better you than I

Source D

American Press Institute

This guide, like many of the others in API’s Journalism Essentials section, is largely based on the research and teachings of the Committee of Concerned Journalists — a consortium of reporters, editors, producers, publishers, owners and academics that for 10 years facilitated a discussion among thousands of journalists about what they did, how they did it, and why it was important. The author, Walter Dean, was CCJ training director and API Executive Director Tom Rosenstiel formerly co-chaired the committee.

What is the purpose of journalism?

“The purpose of journalism,” write Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel in The Elements of Journalism, “is not defined by technology, nor by journalists or the techniques they employ.” Rather, “the principles and purpose of journalism are defined by something more basic: the function news plays in the lives of people.”

News is that part of communication that keeps us informed of the changing events, issues, and characters in the world outside. Though it may be interesting or even entertaining, the foremost value of news is as a utility to empower the informed.

The purpose of journalism is thus to provide citizens with the information they need to make the best possible decisions about their lives, their communities, their societies, and their governments.

Source E

style

Source F

The role of local TV news

By Tom Rosenstiel, Amy Mitchell, Kristen Purcell and Lee Rainie

For many years, polls have shown that local TV is the most popular medium in America for news. This survey, however, adds interesting and limiting dimensions to that finding.

Local TV is a critical source for everyday news

Local TV (which for the purposes of this survey includes both televised broadcasts and local television websites) is the most popular source for the two topics that almost everyone is interested in—weather and breaking news. It has made itself essential in people’s lives for events happening right now, though the survey also finds that the internet is creeping into those territories.

Television also clearly beats out newspapers as a source for local political news among non-internet users (41% to 27%) and among the less educated and those with lower household incomes.
Beyond these four local topics, though, television news is rarely named as a primary source. In fact, in half of the topic areas asked about, fewer than 10% of adults name television as their primary source. This includes information about housing, jobs, community events and taxes.
In short, local TV news has thrived by developing a franchise around a handful of topics that have the widest appeal.
What does all this portend for the future of the medium? Local television still has a hold on some of the most sought-after local topics, and ones that people seek out most often. But these are also topics for which convenience and timeliness are key features, and television might easily be replaced by mobile platforms that are even more accessible than TV. For weather, this may already be happening–as roughly a third 32% cite the internet as a primary source and 7% cite mobile devices. Weather apps and websites can often have as much or more information on local weather, and can localize it even more narrowly, than a local TV newscast might.
And for most of the local topics that require more deep reporting and analysis, such as taxes or zoning or local business, consumers already turn to platforms other than television. As news outlets try to find their place in the evolving information ecosystem, then, local news may be in a vulnerable position. What television has that others do not is the force of personality of local anchors and reporters on camera.