Fair enough … but if they are required to shoot video, then how should they shoot instead? If we expect people to watch reporter-shot video online, doesn’t the video have to be interesting and good?

As for your feeling like an MMC 2100 student thrust into a capstone course, I’m very sorry about that! I hope we can talk some more about how I could improve the video instruction.

As for the IML, I really do suggest that you write an e-mail to our dean, Dr. Wright, and our graduate dean, Dr. Treise. Don’t do it just to complain but rather to explain what you believe a grad student such as yourself ought to have access to in our college. A lot of changes are under way here now and your input would really be valuable.

*This* is why I dropped my other blog.

Even in an academic discussion, to assume someone is a “VILLIAN” in a feature story would not be very objective, now would it?

Also, I think you mean VILLAIN, not protagonist. See definitions below:

vil·lain /ˈvɪlən/ –noun 1. a cruelly malicious person who is involved in or devoted to wickedness or crime; scoundrel.
2. a character in a play, novel, or the like, who constitutes an important evil agency in the plot

pro·tag·o·nist /proʊˈtægənɪst/ –noun 1. the leading character, hero, or heroine of a drama or other literary work.
2. a proponent for or advocate of a political cause, social program, etc.

Rather, I think she was perhaps too personally invested in finding him not guilty. You can hear that in her question to the sister during an interview, when the sister provides info that can only be seen as heresay and can never be supported and documented. Does the source provide what the reporter so desperately wants in order to please her? It begs that question.

The method of story telling begs a protagonist. It NEEDS a bad guy in the narrative to make it entertaining. It did implicate the van driver in very subtle ways, the pimp in more obvious ways.

Jones IQ speaks to his capacity and vulnerability of used by detectives as a fall guy for the murder. Here is a man who is developmentally disabled — if his IQ is that low. Why gloss over that point when it goes miles in explaining how this could happen and how he could be convinced to give a false confession– telling the story about the girl killing herself.

I thought it was clever to split the screen for example while interviewing one religious leader, the other side of the screen would have a picture of Obama or Hillary or President Clinton depending on what the person was talking about. I think the shots of the people in the church and the emotional clips the videographer chose also kept my interest in this video which was 5 minutes long. Ultimately I think the video was very stylish and polished and newsworthy because these black religious leaders do influence how their congregations view candidates and vote.

I understand what Cher meant when she said A Day at the Beach with GOP voters didn’t really have an arc. I liked the video because it was showing the issues people thought about and unlike the first video, these people weren’t leaders or talking about how they made their decisions based on church. I think this video had a more light-hearted feel which was also nice. I think the shots of the surroundings at the beach were very appropriate because it supported the tone and body language of the people being interviewed. You will talk and behave differently if you’re at the beach than if you were dressed up at church. But I can see how Cher would say it made Republicans seem less serious than the black leaders in the other video. So I appreciated the shots of the children on rides or the jerseys on the wall of the restaurant.

I also thought the videographer did a nice job of being selective with what parts of the interview he included. The people he talked to expressed themselves well and told why they were supporting one candidate or in some cases undecided.

Too many long-form stories are just too boring.

A great long-form story is a wonderful thing, but there aren’t so many of those, in my opinion.

You can put a password for this post. In the editing mode of this post, you will see the password option on the right side of the page, under “categories” and “discussion” sections. It’s called “Post Password.” You can then ask Mindy to email the class the password.

Take care!