Individual Blog Post 5

I watched a segment of 20/20 on a story of the rape and murder of the morning news anchorwoman, Anna Pressly, of Little Rock, Ark. This was a two party story, the first revealing the crime and then the achievements the police had made in the case. The second segment was of another woman, Kristen Edwards, who was also sexually assaulted by the same suspect but unlike Pressly, she was not murdered. This segment reveals how the police were able to catch the suspect even without witnesses.

This story was well edited. It showed visuals of what the reporter was talking about. The reporter wrote to the script well and addressed things on the screen, saying, “this house,” when the house of the killer was on screen. Another thing I thought was good that the story did was b-roll the bites (when someone was talking, the camera would be on the person for a few seconds and cut away to whatever it was they were talking about). The reporter also included reaction shots which were good and provided variety.

An improvement that can be made would be to include action shots. There were a lot of still photographs of houses, or grocery stores, but not a lot of shots of people doing things. This is essential because action shots are what cause people to pay attention and what viewers are most interested in seeing.

The reporter sometimes included himself when he asked the interviewee questions and then showed that person’s response. I think this worked out well, but a reporter has to pay attention to how many times he or she does this because otherwise the story will start to look like it is about the reporter, and not the interviewee.

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Individual Blog Post 4

Tonight’s newscast I analyzed was KRON 4 at 8 p.m. This was the first time I had ever watched this station’s news program. Another difference between these analyses was that I examined areas that I usually do not pay attention to, which included the weather report. The 8 p.m. news show had a women meteorologist, which I found rare because this profession is predominantly male. Evelyn Taft, the meteorologist, I found was almost irritating. Her tone was not conversational and she was too wordy in what she said. She took breaths at awkward moments so her speech was broken up in places where it should have flowed. Usually I do not notice how meteorologists have to ad lib for five minutes, but this news segment was obvious that she was making it up as she went because of her awkward delivery. I hope to see another of her newscasts and witness improvement, or another female meteorologist who can execute it better.

Another person who I felt did not execute his job as well as he could have was Sports Director, Gary Radnich. His comments were completely subjective. I have not seen this show before so I was unsure if his segment was an opinion piece where he said how he felt instead of reporting the news. Regardless, he made comments that I believed were extremely subjective and would be completely inappropriate for a strictly "news" segment.

Something I admired on this show was that they included what was happening on their website at that exact moment in time. They also had information flash on the bottom of the screen, the latest stories, stock market information, and the latest weather details in different areas in the Bay Area. This information is a great addition to a newscast because it provides relevant information and the viewer does not have to wait until a particular story or weather report is on to learn more.

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Individual Blog Post 3

I watched the ten o’clock news on channel 2, KTVU. Most news packages wrote to the video, especially a story that was about gas prices. This one included action shots, people were moving on screen, pumping gas, doing things. Action shots provide better footage than static ones, and they are more interesting. This package had lots of different shots, which furthered the story. It also had different angles of shots. There was one of a freeway from high above so the viewer could see down on the freeway. This angle of looking down provided more variety.

KTVU also mentioned to look on their website for information about traffic updates and other things that viewers would be interested to know. I thought it was a clever way to get viewers to visit their site.

All of the anchor introductions to stories were well written. One news story an anchor read, however, should have had footage. He read the teleprompter for too long. A “talking head,” is not good in news and it is always better for action. I thought this piece could have been improved if he spoke for a couple sentences and then pictures showed of what he was talking about.

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Rock 'n' Roll Heroes Posters

Individual Blog Post 2

I watched KTVU Channel 2 News Tuesday night at 10p.m. The newscast had strengths and weaknesses. The show provided a variety and mixed types of stories, packages, vo/sots and live shots. Anchors also shared equal talking time taking turns on reporting the stories. Over the shoulder boxes were used on all stories, which I thought made the introductions more interesting because it was nice to see a visual as the anchor was speaking.

The top story was about the large amount of public drunkenness is San Jose and that Latinos made up 30 percent of those people receiving citations. I did not think this story should have been the first one because there were other stories that I felt were more important, like the fire in Montecito.

There was a news package about a 93-year-old woman that died in a fire in San Francisco and I felt it incorporated great soundbites. The soundbites showed the emotion that was present. There was another package about the budget that I thought did not do as well. This was because the b-roll shots we’re too long and didn’t move the story along. If they had been shorter and more shots I believe the story would have been better and the shots would have moved the story forward. In this package the reporter did not write to the b-video. They could have mentioned things that were on screen, but instead the reporters spoke of other things.

The teases right before the commercial breaks were well written. They definitely kept me wanting to see what was to come. The majority of the stories also had very interesting content and I wanted to hear about them.

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Individual Blog Post 1

The medium I used for election coverage was news television. I watched NBC because it is a national station. I chose to receive my information on the election on television because it was immediate and continuously updated its information as soon as new news was discovered. I also liked the live footage the news station provided, places around the nation where events and people gathered such as polls and election parties. The results were shared as soon as the polls were in. There was a large map of the U.S. and each state would be painted either red or blue depending on which candidate won that state.

Throughout the program, both democratic and republican representatives were brought on and discussed what was going on at that time. Also, they had projected winners of the states that had the polls still open. There was video footage of voters in action at their polling places. Soundbites from these voters were also included. These people said standing in line for hours was worth it because they were making history. I felt like it was a well-rounded and balanced news coverage that showed what was going on.

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Word of the Week #8

Irrespective

Source: Scholarly journal, Effects of housing system (outdoor vs. cages) and age laying hens on egg characteristics by H. Van Den Brand, H.K. Parmentier and B. Kemp.

How it was used: Irrespective of age eggs from outdoor layers were relatively broader than eggs from caged layers.

Definition: Not taking something into account; regardless of

Sentence: After the suspect was convicted he was sentenced to pay restitution irrespective of his income level.

Adjective