Language and Media Dictionary of Key Terms (April 2016) Martin Montgomery

autocue media n. a device that allows presenters to read a script while looking directly to camera (or to the audience). It is used most commonly in studio-based television work, typically in news reading. It was developed in the second half of the 1950s in both the UK and the US (where the device is known as the ‘teleprompter’, sometimes shortened to ‘prompter’) and was first adopted for news presentation in the early 1960s. Early versions used a paper scroll alongside and close to the camera but this been superseded by digital running script reflected by mirrors onto a glass screen between the presenter and the camera. In this way a news reader, for instance, is able to adopt direct visual address to the audience, regarded as television’s characteristic mode of address. mmo

bias media n. in news coverage refers to a systematic tendency on the part of a news provider to depict events from a particular political standpoint. Allegations of bias in the US or UK context are more usually made against broadcasters than newspapers, on the grounds that the latter are more restricted in their audience and have traditionally been recognized as partisan, whereas the former make more explicit claims to impartiality, and indeed, in the case of public service broadcasters, may be required to be so. Much academic research has accumulated around the question, rarely conclusive, though periodic high profile interventions keep issues of bias alive. From the Falklands War (1982) onwards, governments of the day have accused the BBC of anti-war bias. mmo