Audio-Visual Newsgathering

So this is my first post to the class board and therefore pretty embarrassing considering I thought I had posted way back in the beginning of the semester. How bout those Phills? A Happy World Series day to you all. More to come soon...

In my cyberspace and society class, we're also talking about social networking.  I love sites that make it easy to stay in contact with friends and relatives, but some people reveal WAY too much on sites like MySpace and Facebook.  A lot of articles we've read in my other class explain that people reveal too much because of the anonymity factor or they think only friends are viewing their page.  If this was the case, there wouldn't be so many online predators and sexual assault convictions linked to the popular sites.  I'm not saying this is grounds to delete the social sites from your life, but at least make them private, or think twice before revealing too much information.

PANMA networking event at Triumph Brewing Company:


CLEAN UP and GET DOWN!
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...Helping is like a party that everyone is invited to.
Clean Up and Get Down was created to unite positive, motivated and fun-loving people in strengthening communities. We held our inaugural event on January 12, 2008 in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania where over twenty-five people cleaned up (and got down) in a local branch of the Appalachian Trail.

Clean Up and Get Down began in earnest but the only limitation to how big this movement can grow is ones' imagination.

It is up to our generation to step up in fixing the environmental crisis and bringing people together through activism and communitarianism. When we solve these problems, many of our other problems will also disappear.

If everyone helps a little we can make a huge difference, and have a blast at the same time.

Our short term goal is make Clean Up and Get Down a staple of the Philadelphia culture; This means having concerts, parties, and community service events to raise funds and spread the our message.

For Clean Up and Get Down to get big we must first have events to spread the word, and for that we need contacts in any other local and global community volunteer groups. You can help by inviting anybody who shares our vision. The more positive people in on this with us, the better, because we are all in this together


...In closing. Has any one seen this week's edition of the Temple News yet?

...www.TEMPLE-NEWS.COM

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"That's hot."

To all you journalism majors that haven't been published in the Temple News yet, what are you waiting for? JOIN THE PARTY.

Kurt West
Jou 113
Tue/Fri 10:10/10:40
http://abcnews.go.com/Video/player…
   
    A recent oil spill off the coast of South Korea has compelled hundreds of volunteers, military soldiers and civil servants to embark on a massive cleaning effort to help clean up South Korea’s worst oil spill in history.  The thousands of people helping in the effort are using their brooms, shovels, and even their hands to clean up the crude oil sludge that has washed ashore for miles of the shoreline.
    A crane carrying vessel accidently rammed into the side of oil tanker five miles off the coast of one of South Korea’s most popular beaches and spilled 66,000 gallons of oil into the water.  The government made an effort to stop the spread of the oil off shore, but it has essentially left the people who live and work in the area to deal with the cleanup on their own.
    The area is a huge tourist attraction and the oil spill has threatened to close the beaches for up to 10 years if not properly cleaned up.
    ABC Joohee Cho covered was on the scene for the story and opened with describing the eye burning fumes that thousands of volunteers are suffering through virtually to save their beaches and essentially their livelihood.  The piece has excellent shots of the volunteers using whatever they can to clean up the thick oil, and includes an interview with a women who runs a business at the shore.  She said that she thought of her family and how this spill would change their lives.  It was very genuine and really gets to the point that this spill is going to affect many families and businesses in the area.
The piece also used cutaways of the crack in the oil tanker, oil covered patches of oceans, and wildlife covered in oil, reminiscent of the Valdez spill in the early 90’s.  The shots were clear and most importantly impacting.  This story was covered objectively and gives all viewers the sense if disparity that South Koreans are facing in the coming weeks to months.

Dr. Jacobson,
I forgot to put my name with my post.  This is Ajor Brown and I did the post on Organic Food.  

Thank you

I found the following video on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06h…

The interview as a news piece is very interesting for various reasons. The interview is based on a good amount of research. The man working for CNN is basing his interview on claims that John McCain made about Baghdad being a safe place to walk around. In order to see if his claims were correct video footage from Baghdad was used to show that conditions are not good as well as reports from military still in Baghdad. To show two conflicting views, Michael Ware, who has been living in Baghdad for the past 4 years was also interviewed. So as far as research goes, it was correctly covered as to not have a bias. Even though the end result o the piece is basically saying that John McCain is not in touch with reality, it is only because of the facts that Michael Ware uses to prove his points that Baghdad is still unsafe.
The production of the piece was done well also cutaways were effectively used as well as extra footage to show conditions in Baghdad. Even though McCain was a bit rude during the interview, the interview-ee kept his cool and did not react to a bad interview subject. The man conducting the interview also did a good job of staying neutral to the situation by not adding in his opinio and just asking questions.
The editing for the piece turned out very nicely. There is a good flow between the introduction of the piece, the two interviews, as well as extra b-roll footage used to depict the scenario. There could definitely be ethical issues with this piece considering is deals with a politician stating untrue facts about the condition over seas, but honestly I think America is used to this by now and has been able to deal with it with a grain of salt as time goes on.


By Jessica Westergom

**I honestly had this entry done on time, apparantly (thanks to my friend informing me) I posted this on the wrong blog, it was on Journalism55's community page if you would like to double check to see that it was done on time**

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiJ…

Megan Suermann

 

            The news piece I chose was an ABC news broadcast from July 16, 2007 on the Iraq surge.  It was called “Normal Day” in Iraq and all of the shots were done by a British photographer named Sean Smith. The piece was well-edited and showed a dark side of war rarely seen on the evening news since the Iraq war started.  The overall production was good.  The camera work was a little shaky but that was because the crew was shooting action shots of the war up close and personal.  I thought the camera angles and close-ups were shot beautifully

            The firing of guns, people crying, screams of horror as someone was shot were heard clearly.  The images of people bloodied on the streets of Baghdad were very effective in telling the story of a typical day in the life of American soldiers in the middle of a war zone captured by a British photographer no less.  The footage was completely uncensored. The whole video was chaotic and was meant to be shot that way.  I thought the footage of the one solider talking who was a specialist in the army was too dark though.

            The cutaways to the war zone and to the streets of Baghdad were very authentic.  Nothing seemed forced about the camera shots or the close-ups of the action.  The camera drew back at pivotal moments to allow the viewers watching the video take in the surrounding action and violence in the area. I liked how the camera froze on certain actions shots.

            I was surprised by the candidacy of the soldiers who were interviewed.  It’s not too often that American soldiers are allowed to speak out and publicly condemn the war and call into question the actions of the president and Congress for going to war.  I’m surprised that the media was allowed to show such raw footage of people getting shot and blown up.  I wondered why an American photographer instead of a foreign one couldn’t have shot something like this and shown it on the news. i also wondered what took ABC so long to show this type of footage from an insider's perspective.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyf…

For this audio/visual analysis, I choose a clip that Boston University students made following the tragedy at Virginia Tech.  It was a news story for a journalism, so I found it interesting to analyze students majoring in journalism at another school. 

They obviously did a good amount of research for this project, as the people they interviewed gave many diverse answers to a multitude of questions.  All of them were on point with the topic; no one ever seemed to drift too far off topic at any point.  They also choose good sources for this interview.  They interviewed people from every different racial demographic.  The responses they got about the topic reflect that.

The production was sketchy at best.  First, the shots were way too shaky.  The talking heads are floating all over the screen because they could never get a steady shot.  They were always able to get good audio, however.  There was never alot of buzz of ambient sound in the background.  They choose nice environments to do their interviews in.  The areas behind the talking heads that I saw on screen were nice, didn't have too many people, and didn't appear too static or cluttered.  

The editing was okay, but there were no "B" roll shots incorporated into the piece, as well as no lower-thirds.  No reporters were even seen in the piece, there was no introduction or wrap up to the piece.  The editing was alittle choppy.  It could have been better and more precise; there were small, maybe a second, black spaces between the clips.  

The subject matter was a good topic to choose because this is something that could happen at any college campus in America.  There were no legal or ethical issues with this piece, and while it is an extremely newsworthy topic, and these students at BU who were interviewed gave great responses, the editing and production are just not good enough for this piece to compare nicely to a written piece.

Travis Manger

    I'm specifically posting an analysis of a podcast I listen to frequently and can therefore feel safe in my critique of its quality; the podcast in question is the once weekly, "EGM Live*" show, where the editors of Electronic Gaming Monthly, often joined by members from different branches of the Ziff Davis Media empire group, share their opinions on an editorial first segment (which can also be an interview) as well as a reviews segment (titled, "Review Crew") and finally, a "Question of the Week" segment. Released each Monday, the EGM Live* podcast often consists of Electronic Gaming Monthly's Managing Editor Jennifer Tsao, Senior Editor's Crispin Boyer and/or Shane Bettenhausen, Reviews Editor Greg Ford and sometimes, but less often lately, Editor-in-Chief Dan, "Shoe" Hsu.

    In the past, the EGM Live* podcast followed the formula many gaming podcasts these days have fallen into: Intro, Games Played Lately, News, Special Features, User E-mails/Phonecalls, Outro. However, in the past two months, Managing Editor Jennifer Tsao has taken things in a new direction, breaking up the show into specific segments, often recorded at separate times and with different hosts for each segment. The reasoning behind this, other than setting her podcast apart from other gaming podcasts, is to emulate the sections of a magazine - - most specifically, EGM.

    The episode dated 12/10/07 follows this new segmented formula and plays like an issue of EGM, albeit with Jennifer Tsao behind the editor's desk. As the opening music plays (ambient drum n' bass), she welcomes the listeners and introduces the upcoming segments calmly and quickly, readying you for the upcoming interview and offering a warning/apology for poor sound quality during that clip. Furthermore, she teases a special, "Question of the Week" segment near the end of the show, smoothly driving more hits to the EGM Live* website. The music again rolls and soon we are hearing Editor-in-Chief Dan Hsu introduce himself and those around him (Brian Jarrard and Lars Bakken of Bungie Studios, creators of, "Halo 3.") Longtime listeners and readers of EGM will know that Mr. Hsu is well versed in the topic of discussion on deck today: new downloadable multiplayer maps for the multi-million selling, "Halo 3." However, first time listeners will quickly learn exactly how well Mr. Hsu knows his industry, his profession, and even more specifically, this game. The wealth of knowledge Mr. Hsu carries with him off the top of his head is enormous and his ability to adaptively ask provocative and intelligent questions in a comfortable and conversational way is, to say the least, compelling.

(As a sidenote, Dan Hsu has been one of the leaders of the, "New Game Journalism" movement over the past ten years and he has helped to reshape how mainstream society view video games, none the less, "games journalism," if such a thing even exists.)

    The interview draws to a close, and the familiar music plays once more as the voices of the EGM Live*, "Review Crew" come stumbling out all at once, leaving no time for proper introduction. This has come to be familiar with this segment of the show, as the gentlemen who often make up the, "Review Crew" are known by EGM fans as sophomorish or brash - - they are Bryan Intihar (Previews Editor), Greg Ford (Reviews Editor) and Jeremy Parish (1UP.com Editor.) This time though, the group is made up of the former two, minus the latter, plus Nick Suttner (Reviews Intern) and Garnett Lee (Managing Editor 1UP.com.) They quibble and fight, emulating the ever popular, "internet forum style" of arguing. While it is possible to find good information about a specific game coming out that week from this segment, you're better off reading a reviews section of a magazine or on the web. Mostly, the, "Review Crew" and the third, and final, segment of the podcast ("Question of the Week") exist to pay fan service. Furthermore, it keeps a devoted fan base and if anything, drives more people to start listening.

    When all was said and done, i would certainly say this is an excellent podcast. While the audio quality could have been better during the interview segment, technical problems do occur and it was certainly still clear enough to hear easily. The professionalism and conveyance of information were top of the line. Beyond that, the podcast does an excellent job of tying the magazine, the website and the people behind all of them together.

-Benjamin Gilbert-

this clip demonstrates how a bungle in the control room can hinder the quality of a report while live on the air. In this clip, the commentator is unexpectedly interrupted by a misfire of the equipment. The cut reveals President George W. Bush rehearsing his speech.

Essentially, the problem lies in the fact that the focus shifts to the president in a moment in which the president seems to be a bit vulnerable. Meanwhile, the commentary of the anchor is focused on his Democratic opponents. While this may not present an obvious problem or issue, it is a moment that generally can ruin a news report and bring unwanted heat onto the news station.