So I went cruising around this thing that the kids today call the “internet,” and as dictated by my assignment I found three different news websites that utilized video/audio.
The fist video I video I found was on cnn.com and it was of Christine O’Donnell, the Republican nominee for Delaware’s 2010 Senate race, speaking on Bill Maher’s old TV show in the late nineties. In the video a young O’Donnell said she used to be involved in which craft. This video footage is reported on as if it is some necessary thing, but only is news worthy because O’Donnell is now an extremely far-right-wing-Christian conservative. The video is “shocking” in the same way as if we found out that Lady Gaga used to try and bomb abortion clinics, but it isn’t really important or relevant.
The second one I found on my little “hike through the world-wide-web,” was on foxnews.com. This video showed footage of members of a religious cult who were recently found in a park. The cult members had been missing and were believed to have been dead, but were luckily found just praying in a park. I find this video to be a bit unnecessary, everything in the report can be stated in video can be put down in print and the nothing essential is lost. What we do lose is images of the mindless faces of these cult members and the image of a cop showing a puppy to a little cult-girl, highly unnecessary.
This last video, I barely can consider news. I found this on yahoo.com on the news section. The video is about a 6-year old girl who got kicked off a cheerleading squad because her mom complained about one of the cheers. This video may be the most unnecessary of all. Everything said in the report needs no visuals. These images of a cute little girl saying things like “cheering is important to me,” is only on video so it can tug at the heart strings of those watching it.
Alright, so that’s my ridiculous opinion.
I agree that in the last two videos you included, not much was added by putting the story in video rather than in print. The videos came across as a way to show cute kids in a sad situation or a ridiculous situation, respectively. I also thought both videos struggled to fill their 7-minute run times and resorted to repeating some information or adding information that was not really necessary.
ReplyDeleteHowever, these two videos made me realize one important advantage that video can have over print. In both videos, you saw the full interview, so you knew what questions the reporter was asking. In the video about the 6-year-old cheerleader, the reporter asked the question that was in my mind ("Why didn't you just take your daughter out of the cheerleading squad if you didn't approve of the cheers?"). In the video about the "cult-like" religious group, the reporter asked questions that didn't even occur to me, like whether or not an amber alert had been sent out for the children in the group.
I've often noticed what you said about "news" videos that can barely be considered news. I think that print media only has room to publish the most noteworthy stories or at least the most essential elements of a story. Videos are so rampant, however, that there's room for any fluff story to be included on a news website. This can be advantageous, however, when viewers get to see story details that had to be cut from print material.
ReplyDeleteIn which craft was she involved?
ReplyDelete