Meredith Kercher Murder trial

Meredith Kercher was a British student who was murdered last year in Perguia, Italy. This video gives an update on the trial. . Kercher shared an apartment with American student Amanda Knox. Knox and her boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, are suspects in the case. Investigators say Kercher’s murder began as a sex game. Knox stabbed Kercher in the neck as Sollecito held her back. The third suspect, Rudy Guede, tried to sexually assault Kercher at the same time.

Guede has been sentenced to 30 years. The judge also ruled that Knox’s and Sollecito’s trials will be held in early December. Kercher’s family said they were pleased with that decision. Although neither have been formally convicted, they have been held in custody for about a year.

Both suspects and the convicted deny the allegations. Knox and Sollecito’s lawyer asked if the two may be put on house arrest. A decision will be made in the next few days.

Guede, Knox, and Sollecito (left to right)

I noticed that in this broadcast news, the sentences were very short. The present tense was used a lot more than the past. The video seemed to start with the older news, and build to the most recent; it was in somewhat of chronological order. In this video, unlike in print, the story didn’t really follow an inverted pyramid. The words were short and concise, usually no more than three syllables.

Ted Stevens Conviction

World News with Charlie Gibson ran this story about Ted Stevens’ conviction. Ted Stevens is an Alaskan Senator who was found to have accepted millions of dollars in gifts from lobbyists, corporations, and special interest groups and failing to report them on his claim form at the beginning of this year.

World News is pretty good at combining both short sentences filled with facts and somewhat longer sentences that establish mood and convey emotion as is the case in the package introduced by Gibson. The longer sentences don’t lose the audience’s attention because the details keep them interested. There is also  a compilation of courtroom pastels, photos, and video of Stevens in the courthouse and even some audio of Stevens implicating himself.

Caught on tape: Scuffle over Gay marriage

           I was searching through news websites for news stories that stuck out to me. This video from USA Today really hit home for me. It centered around a “scuffle” that took place at protest rally surrounding Proposition 8 in California. A high school board member in support of Proposition 8 was caught on table in a scuffle with a teenager who was against Prop 8. Proposition 8 is on the ballot in California and if it is passed it will due away with gay marriage in California by defining it has a union between a man and a woman. Both parties involved in the fight say the other started it first, it may not be clear who is telling the truth but it’s obvious this issue is creating some serious tension. 

       The broadcast itself does a good job of presenting the information surrounding the incident. It unfolds the story  with a mix of actual footage of the event mixed with interviews from people involved.  It doesn’t give too much information but just enough to understand what happened and keep the viewers interest.  There was a clear flow throughout the video. The information was also shown in a manor that didn’t lean to one side or the other.

NBC News…. Christian Science Monitor: now a weekly publication

The Christian Science monitor has now officially announced that it will now only be published on a weekly basis after being a daily newspaper over the course over of a century. With the disappearance of traditional forms of media, the publication has decided to focus its efforts on its website and the Internet. Apparently the news paper business and print media is becoming less and less profitable as time progresses. About a 1% drop in readership amongst major news publications is occurring every month. Amongst struggling papers include the LA Times and the Newark Star Leger, which cut 40% of its employees.

I enjoyed this particular video. I think it demonstrates a good example of broadcast media. It’s key virtue is that it follows point 2, in Inside Reporting, which is that it keeps the story short and simple. The video is only 34 seconds, but that’s only that’s needed for a story like this. Also, most people in the morning aren’t going to have time to follow everything in a story because they’re in a rush to get to work. They want to know what has happened! Details are secondary! This video’s length is ideal for a person on the go in the morning. Newscaster, Brian Williams, does a good at using the present tense in addition and also uses the 1st point in our text, “a friendly/conversational tone.” He opens the broadcast with “We learned today of…” Using the first person plural reaches out to the audience more in my opinion. In my opinion, this broadcast is more effective than many of the other broadcasts on NBC news’s website which focus on more complex topics, but are longer and more drawn out.

Driver in Teen Accident had Restricted License (Broadcast Analysis)

USA Today’s website provides both a print story and a broadcast story about Shirley Nikki Hughett, 16, a rural Tennessee teen that lost control of an SUV and killed five people last Friday. The car hydroplaned, flipped, crossed into oncoming traffic and burst into flames when it hit another car. The four girls in the SUV, all high school cheerleaders, died. A passenger in the other car was killed too. Authorities have just discovered that Hughett held an intermediate, restricted license and should not have even been driving her car past 11 p.m.

While the broadcast video presents new developments, some background information is given first. But the news anchor is conversational and does keep the facts simple. Plus, the story is told in chronological order, rather than in an inverted pyramid style. This is important, so that viewers are able to follow the story as it really happened. When the man talks about past news, he uses past tense verbs. But when discussing new developments about the driver’s license, he uses present tense verbs. To give the story a more personal angle, students from the cheerleaders’ high school are interviewed. The video also shows excellent footage of the damaged car, the scene of the accident and mourning students to provide visual representations of the story.

Broadcast analysis: follow up story on Julian King

Susan Roesgen, anchor of CCN News, reported a follow up story on Jennifer Hudson’s murdered nephew and detailed information that has been released so far. 7-year-old Julian King was found in a backseat of a white SUV. Although the medical examiner’s office reported that Julian has suffered from multiple gunshots after an autopsy on Tuesday, the murder case remains a mystery. Questions pertaining to how long Julian has been dead are still unknown.  Furthermore, Jody Weis from Chicago Police Department questions the murderer’s motive and suspects that this act is not a homicide. The police suspects that the murderer could be Julian’s stepfather, William Balfour.

Overall, I really enjoyed watching the broadcast video and listening to what the anchor has to say. Roesgen presents the news in a professional manner because she sounds confident and energetic. In addition to the friendly and comprehendible message, I noticed that Roesgen uses inflections to highlight key points in the news story. For example, she emphasizes words such as “who” and “why” in “Now the question is who and why?” As an anchor, Roesgen almost never stumbles when she speaks; she enunciates each word clearly and articulates her presentation through an eloquent voice. I think speaking on broadcast is an art because the anchor needs to balance between speaking eloquently and clearly, talking in a good pace and getting the message across all at the same time.

Furthermore, the broadcast does a good job finding evidence to support the news story such as selecting photo clips and sound clips from a representative from the Chicago Police Department. Most importantly, the anchor’s voice along with the clips match and help give an overall multi-media experience for viewers.

News Broadcast: Local Coverage Analysis

I am from Cincinnati, Ohio and thought it interesting to analyze how a local station presented the local news in a medium size city with a smaller city feel.

THE STORY

The video I found interesting covered a shooting of a city cab driver and premiered as the lead story. Richard Reynolds was shot three times in the chest after he dropped off a fare in Bond Hill, not known to be a safe part of Cincinnati, early Sunday morning. He does not normally work this particular time, but the Saturday night bar rush provides a lot of customers for overtime pay. Listed in critical condition, Police can only wait until he regains consciousness to clear some of the fogginess surrounding the obscure shooting. Meanwhile,numerous initiatives and community pleas have gone out to obtain any information concerning what occurred and why.

ANALYSIS

What most interested me was the incorporation of a wide variety of primary sources and locations for such a short piece. Being the lead story, it received a longer story length than others, but the amount of work that obviously went into it still dwarfs the actual on air time. The story had video clips from interviews with Reynolds’ boss and a police detective working on the case. It also had several shots of different locations pertinent to the story such as the location of the fare drop-off, the McDonald’s Reynolds drove to and the report itself came from Newport on the Levee where Reynolds picked up the fare and is a popular city leisure area. Furthermore, because it was a lead story, the anchors introduced it in a gripping and attention grabbing manner that was actually the reason I picked the story. The lead makes all the difference to keep the viewers from switching to another station.

Stacy Peterson broadcast

This is a broadcast from the US News website about the case of Stacy Peterson, the missing wife of a former police officer.  The broadcast was earlier this fall, on the one year anniversary of her disappearance. The husband is interviewed during the broadcast, as he is one of the key suspects in the case. He blames the media for creating the guilty image of him. Stacy was the officer’s fourth wife, following Kathleen Savio who died in what was originally called an accidental drowning but is now being referred to as a homicide.

This video had many examples of broadcast style rules from our textbook.  Of course, there was a conversational tone throughout the entire story.  There were also actualities from the husband during the video.  One of the biggest differences between a broadcast story and a print story is the order of information given.  While the average print story uses the inverted pyramid, this broadcast story definitely had a “beginning, a middle and an end.”

Television News Reporting Analysis

   The news that is reported on television varies from the news that is written in the newspaper because it is being heard and not written. On television there is a person’s face and a voice with emotions to go along with a story. A good example of the type of television news reporting can be seen on the CBS News website in a story entitled “Harrasment in the Military“.

  The story features David Martin, the National Security Correspondent for CBS News, at the Pentagon reporting on a recent survey conducted by the Government Accountability Office. The survey found that out of 125,000 medical records examined that 15 percent of war veterans reported sexual trauma.

    The story does a good job of employing beneficial features of a broadcast news story. It features a voice over while pictures and statistics are scrolling across the screen. The story also does well at incorporating direct quotations by people who were interviewed. Unlike in print journalism, in broadcast you have the ability to show someone saying their own quotation. This piece uses an interview to display a direct quotation.

 The news anchor of this story also does a good job of getting straight to the point and being personable in his tone of voice. He maintains eye contact with the camera and the audience and puts emphasis on certain words and aspects of the story. The package is written in such a way that you feel like someone is talking to you. The package contains a good introduction and exit and makes you think about the subject more. Overall this piece is a good example of writing for broadcast.

Newsweek Broadcast Creates Clear Points

Newsweek released a broadcast on Oct. 25 about John McCain. A correspondent from Washington, D.C. spoke with a Newsweek representative to discuss what John McCain’s White House would look like based on the many facets of his personality.

 

The broadcast started off strong with clear diction and well paced speaking. However, the bottom of the screen was cluttered with unnecessary information about NASDAQ and the news ticker. The quote spoken by the first correspondent was show verbatim in graphic form on the screen and created an interesting visual. When the Newsweek representative was introduced, the viewer saw the beginning of the conversation through a split screen that stated where each broadcaster was located. Shots of McCain and Sarah Palin campaigning and the split screen visuals broke up what could’ve become a “talking heads” type broadcast. Through these McCain speaking shots, the different parts of his personality that were discussed in the video were visually shown, creating clear points.