I can't tell you how many times I've heard a student say that they don't watch TV news or read a newspaper is because it's boring. Well, in many cases, I agree. I mean, after all, how many different times can we hear about a traffic jam, murder, fire, robbery, city council meeting, taxes, politicians, social security, homelessness, joblessness....you get the idea. Television news is often a steady stream of predictable stories, with predictable soundbites and predictable endings, often far removed from our own reality as students.
News can be varied and informative...not just sad. Case in point: Here's when news is crazy.... Zebra snarls traffic in Atlanta... (there are so many creative lead opportunities here!) or here's when news is unpredictable...wow, what a basketball player! (see video below)
The one thing I want you to remember more than anything in this class is that News is About People. Not things, not events, but people. There is so much that is bad and sad going on in our world, but there is even more things that are going on that are good; why don't we see it?
11Alive News is changing the format of their news and I'm really excited. Their news stories are becoming much more of what we do here on Eagle TV. Uplifting, caring, happy, entertaining, REAL. Real stories that are about our neighbors, our friends, our family doing and experiencing things that we can relate to. Not some far-removed political movement or a tax hike aimed at the rich, or some depressing story about someone losing their life savings.
And although those hard news issues are important, there is so much more that is going on in the world that is good that it seems we ought to be focusing on some of that. Maybe the reason our society has become so disenfranchised, rude, selfish and callous is because we don't hear about the good in people much anymore. That is all changing thanks to 11Alive and its innovative, brave news director, Ellen Crooke. Ellen is going out on a limb to showcase some of Atlanta's untold stories and put the human touch back in news.
I challenge each one of you to watch WXIA at least once in the next few days and weeks and let me know what you think. At the same time, focus on your stories and what can you do to make your story humanistic. How can you create a feeling of awe or of warmth or inspiration in the stories we show on Eagle TV? How do you reach out to your viewers and get them engrossed in your story? Which one of you will air a story that gets the most "great show!" comments in my email? What are you doing to make an impression on people?
Keep in mind that people will remember how you made them feel longer than how much you teach them.
The way we can bring a humanistic touch to our stories is by relating to the audience and interviewee of the story. That seems to be the most effective way to convey an ideas or feeling, by bringing the feelings down to their level. Although, in words this is easy, from experience this is very hard.
ReplyDelete-Stephen Birt
I feel that we can make a better impact if our stories were student-related or if it affects our audience directly. Hopefully our upcoming stories will be produced with these ideas in mind.
ReplyDeleteKori Jones
Wow... Me and my dad just watched the video and we were both amazed by it. There really is a big difference from the common news story about death and sorrow and a story such as this one. But one thing I thought about is, what if all news stations broadcasted stories like this? Would it still be a great show or would it become the story we call boring?
ReplyDelete-Terrance Golden
Awww. The "Unlikely Friends" story was so cute. I've showed it to a few of my friends, and they liked it, too. I think a great way to make a story humanistic is to make it about an animal. Almost everybody loves a good story about animals. Another way is to simply show how it SHOULD relate to people ( How it effects/could effect/possible outcomes/causes ). And, agreeing with Terrance, if you show stories like these too often, they might become boring. You have to vary up serious stories with fluff. In our package, we tried to think about angles that MOST people would be interested in.
ReplyDeleteI saw the basketball story one morning on SportsCenter, and couldn't believe what I saw. The story really shows that anything and everything is possible if we truly believe in something. This story was also good, because it was not strictly focusing on the basketball player's condition of autism. The story was just basically more audience friendly.
ReplyDelete-Marcus Cross
I feel as if we the producers,directors,editors and cameramen and women of eagle t.v. do need to find a stories that are engaging and have happy endings as well as beginnings to them. For now on in the stories that I produce I would like to create a package that makes viewers feel good and stay interested and not just think this is just another boring news story. So I would try to find interesting activities that people may not be so aware of in their own neighborhood.
ReplyDeletei seen the basketball story before . i thought it was very unique and not like the other stories. i think more news channels should have a variety of stories like that and the news would become alot more watchable.
ReplyDeleteI feel like we need to do packages on something we can relate on. Alot of people has told me that eagle tv has gotten boring. So i think we need to do more relatable stories to get some of our viewers back
ReplyDeleteI think don't think stories like these would ever be boring since its engage something positive. Not like the usual.
ReplyDelete--Jeff Delva
When I saw the story it really made me think... Wow! This is a story is a good story cause many people would find it hard to believe this mans story. I wish we could have storys like this all the time in Eagle TV to make are viewers more interested than the boring stories we have now.
ReplyDeleteIf eagle tv completed more relatabl stories we may get more feeedback overall for our shows. The most important aspect of doing what we do is to promote stories we think are news-worthy and those that will help out community in the long-run. After that if the story is interesting then great.
ReplyDeleteWhen I saw the story it really made me think... like wow i cant believe it. This is a story is a good story cause many people would find it hard to believe this mans story. If we had more stories like this many viewers would be drawn toward the story
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