Compare and contrast a news story from local news with one from national news. Pay particular attention to duration, composition and technical elements. Make comment about the overall difference of the news stories.
Weeks ago I managed to get in front of the TV to see the local Prime news in Wagga and the ABC national news. The lead stories on both followed similar formats in having an introduction from the news reader, an address from the journalists direct to camera at or near the end and both were around 2-3 minutes in length.
Prime followed the delay of a retirement village development in Henty due to a protected pine tree. That this story also made the front page of the local newspaper says a lot about the focus of the local media and their demographic.
Reporter Hayley Corbett gathered responses from four people, three were elderly investors outraged that a tree was threatening their futures, and the fourth was a phone interview with a spokesperson for the catchment authority. There didn't appear to be any file footage used, none was acknowledged at least.
The piece suffered from a hum throughout, perhaps an unbalanced audio cable, it didn't surface again in the bulletin. The vision relied on a number of shots of the location of the proposed village, the reviled tree, the streets of Henty and the interview subjects. The composition used mid-to-close shots and pans through the cutaways, starting and ending on a held shot.
The ABC led with the story of Private Kovco leaving Iraq. Matt Brown's reporting included an interview with an ADF commander and vision of the military send off. The camera was set up a long way back from the proceedings, picking out a range of shots of the soldiers attending and the coffin by using a telephoto lens. Given the glare of Iraq they struggled a bit to get detail of the priest waving his hands over the casket in the Hercules' bay but they were successful in getting close ups of Australian and British soldiers looking contemplative. There was a dynamic moment when American black hawk helicopters took off nearby although it seemed a little extraneous to the story.
The editing differed from Prime in using static shots but the telephoto lens would have made it difficult and probably a bit wrong to use pans. That sort of movement might have come across as a bit disrespectful for the tone of the piece too I guess.
The resources of the ABC were demonstrated when, after Matt Brown made his address to camera, the story continued as Juanita outlined the response in Kovco's Victorian hometown. There was footage of his former school and soundbites from his former headmaster and then a press conference in Canberra by the Prime Miniature John Howard.
This week I observed an interesting comparison between two rival live broadcasts, Today and Sunrise, both covering the unfolding drama from Beaconsfield. The approach of the two shows was very different, despite the similarities in format and in using an outdoor set. Today used a telephoto lens flattening a small section of the top of the mine and warm lighting with almost black background in the early morning, while Sunrise had a wider angle showing more of the axle above the mineshaft in the background and less lighting, allowing light from the sky.
Both had live interviews and no doubt Today thought they had scored by securing the father of trapped miner Brant Webb, while Sunrise spoke to an ambulance officer. However, Webb senior was not particularly expressive and Karl doggedly attempted to have him open up for 15 minutes, eventually succeeding in getting footage of him wiping away tears with inane statements like "he must come from good stock". I wasn't surprised to see Nine were using edited snippets of the interview in the news bulletin that night but it still seemed like ordinary television with little to say other than the obvious. And it seemed Nine were approaching the event like a funeral.
In contrast, Sunrise collected a succinct report of the miners current circumstances from someone who had talked to them and could detail how they were holding up and the few luxuries they had been able to receive. Sunrise also managed to fit another story into the same amount of time, including an interview with Peter Beattie about an obesity summit in Queensland.
It's no wonder Sunrise has taken Today's audience. As much as the events at Beaconsfield are highly dramatic, a lengthy and somewhat manipulative live interview on a news/entertainment show first thing in the morning is not great television. One wonders whether the combined coverage of the networks of this lengthening story is approaching overkill but perhaps I'd look unkind in saying I'm over it already.
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