Cliff Bennett

Friday 5, 2010

This week Raiha has asked us to critique a local news broadcast. I chose to critique a news broadcast from February 4^th, 2010. The news cast was titled: 20th Annual National Toboggan Race Preview from WABI-TV5. I was having difficulty critiquing the news cast because of the speed in which the journalist was reading the script. I found myself following the story visually more than verbally. After rewinding the DVR several times I finally got something to write about.

The news article was set at the Camden Snow Bowl. The journalist was pretty dull in tone and not very excited about the news story. She seemed lost in her own story. The script was casual conversation in nature. The sentence structure was simple and direct without any large vocabulary words. The script was almost too simple. It bordered on the lines of boring. That might have been the reason why I was drawn to the video footage. Attribution was credited immediately. For example, the person was introduced then the journalists either questioned them or explained their affiliation with the toboggan race.

If I were the editor of this news broadcast I would have changed a few things. I would have sent a reporter that was more into the story or at least interested in learning more about the toboggan race. I would have requested more information about the construction of the toboggan, history of the race, and trophies awarded. This news story was very weak on details. This story could have been strengthened with a little more research.