EagleVision

Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Start: 5:00 PM
End: 5:55 PM 

For the second media week, I thought it would be a good idea to explore EagleVision and the broadcasting side of journalism. During the meeting, the supervisor started off by talking about the importance of clear voice overs. He told them they needed to sound conversational and to let their voice be heard over the ambient sound. Then he just went through some random announcements and orders of business, such as their deadlines and how exactly they are to turn in all their footage, voiceovers, and finished edits in the class file so that their package could be completed. The supervisor handed out notes about what a news/ feature TV package entails, and another about the delivery and voice-over techniques. After his short lecture, we watched last week’s footage and the finished broadcast that was released last Friday. The students critiqued their own work and the work of others as the footage played. Finally, the executive producer, Taelor Smith, took the reins and began a planning session for the next couple weeks. They reviewed exactly what was being done for this week’s newscast and the progress being made on all the current stories in news, weather, health, world, sports, and entertainment.  They ended with the assignments of the following week’s sections, and what stories would be included in each one. The last part of the meeting was brainstorming stories and the angles they could be taken.

I thought that the work that they did at EagleVision was absolutely amazing. I was so impressed with how much work went into that form of media. I now viewed EagleVision as the same as writing a story like I would have done with print, but then on top of that, they add in aspects of film and editing before their deadline. They had to plan out their stories, get people to say the exact quotes they needed to film, film an introduction, use voice overs, and then add in other film and still pictures to demonstrate the story. It was basically like a print story on steroids. That's how I feel. I never saw myself being interested in broadcast journalism because my dad works for radio and that never really appealed to me, but EagleVision opened my eyes to a whole new world and I can now definitely see myself doing something just like that. They had to work fast and concise and be very good at what they do to make to all come together correctly and I could not be more impressed. Deciding to visit EagleVision for my media week reflection was one of the best decisions I could have made.

Why Journalism Matters in Times of Tragedy

The horrors of September 11, 2001 and the reality of the people who were killed was just visually presented in class.

September 11 was a tragic day in America's history that affected our emotions, our sympathies, and our fears. Seeing the damage of the World Trade Center visually was a huge reminder of the tragedy that stuck almost 10 years ago.

Journalism is what presented those haunting images and video and journalism is what told the world exactly what was going and what people need to know about the World Trade center catastrophe. It think that journalism is so crucial to our lives in America, and even to everyone's lives around the world because not only does it bring the truth and the realities of what is going on in the world, but it is able to affect our emotions and motivate us toward a better society. Seeing the 9-11 incidents over again ignited my patriotism, and I think that is a huge part of what journalism can do. Journalism matters because not only do we need to know the facts about the tragedies going on around us, but we also need to know how they affect us. 2,752 people died that day and those people were our brothers, our sisters, our parents, and our spouses. They were our friends, our coworkers, and our fellow Americans. That disaster is not something to be ignored and journalism brought us the facts and emotions of that event that will be remembered forever in America's history.