I vaguely remember hearing these words while in High School English as my teacher Mrs. Cunningham whose daughter I was daydreaming about, explained it briefly. Even with my hormone clouded mind, come test time I was able to remember “The five W’s”. They are the absolute basic in journalism, and without them no story is complete.
It is 3:30 EST as I write this and I am just back to my computer from making my tea. As you will be able to tell I have already put up a blog today and although I do at times post twice I had no plans to do so today.
A crashed sea plane off of the coast of Miami has changed my plans however. Although I would like to really tell you more about the story I can’t. For 45 minutes now I have seen live footage from the crash, divers in the water, and I have even seen bodies removed from the water and covered completely to signify that they are dead.
My question is this. When does “breaking news” take precedent over news, and when should you start “breaking” the news? There are 5 W’s to answer before you have a complete story, and I understand the networks need to be the “first” to get a story out, but shouldn’t we at least have 3 of the W’s answered before we talk about it?
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At 3:45 now I am hearing about “conflicting reports”.
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Well duh! They are conflicting reports because no one knows WHAT happened and you are putting words in their mouths. Our ability to disseminate the news has so far outreached our ability to generate news.
I am not heartless and I do care about the deaths of my fellow man and I am gladdened to hear about survivors, but I still have to ask how this story affects me in my location. What makes a story not only important enough to be reported on a national level but also important enough to report on before they even know what the story is. Then comes the “real” question. Why have I not changed the channel?
There it is. I always get to a question I don’t like to ask myself and I just found another one.
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3:55 now coast guard on the news, “taking me through the mind” of the pilots, and the “proper protocol” of handling the dead.
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I still am not sure why I have not turned it yet, but it might have something to do with this really dramatic Hollywood music. Drama…….. We need it. I need it I guess.
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4pm now and scheduled show starts…..I guess they did not think it was important enough to interrupt their commercially paid for shows. The new guy says he’ll check back but he has some other stories too. More dramatic music.
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The news companies do this type of microscopic hit and miss guesswork reporting and then seem surprised when some guy gets a sniper rifle and begins killing strangers just so he can be famous.
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5:10 and now I know everything about the model of plane that crashed but still nothing really about the crash itself. They tell me more will come later. (Dramatic Music)
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If you are interested in how this story ends, (the plane crash) I recommend you Google this date and time and maybe “Miami plane crash” or something so you can see how it turns out. Chances are that unless someone is famous or they can definitively prove some scandal, the story will die so good luck
To the families of the people on that plane and the people themselves please accept my condolences for your loss, and I truly hope that you can receive some comfort from your faith, regardless of what that faith may be. At this time my thoughts are with you.
To the news channel I say this:
DRAMATIC MUSIC
News You could be reporting on.
Hold the story till you have a story, there is enough news out there to go around without you making a soap opera out of it.
