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Home CD-ROM Reviews TV News Full Review

TV News
Full Review

Reviewed by: Sally Shute-Trembath, Former producer for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the Nine and Fox Networks in Australia
Review posted 13 October 2005
Review No. 60

CD-ROM Information

Content: "TV News: The Story" is a two-disc CD-ROM set and is the first title in the three-part series "TV News: The Story, the Crew, the Bulletin." This part of the series focuses on basic news gathering skills and the methodology of television journalism. It offers concise training resources covering all television news processes required to gather, produce, and present a TV station's main daily news broadcast.
Publication Date: 1 June 2005
Audience: It is for cadet journalists, journalism school students, or any novice journalist with talent and determination who is looking for a head start to a career in television. It is also an excellent reference guide for anyone wanting to break into the television industry.

Size: Disc one: 638 MB / Disc two:582 MB
Price: Free
Manual needed: No
How to order:

Order by mail:
AIBD
P.O. Box 1137 Pantai
59700 Kuala Lumpur
Malaysia

Order by e-mail:
E-mail: info@aibd.org.my

AIBD website*
*This link takes you outside the ADBI website. Please use the back button to return to ADBI.org.

Full Review

Content

"TV News: The Story" is a two-disc CD-ROM kit. Part one of the first disc titled, "Getting Started" features a checklist of all the elements a reporter should consider when researching a story for television news. The key messages are delivered with the help of cartoons, photos, charts, and video vignettes, many of which portray realistic newsroom situations. Tips include:

the who, what, where, when, why, and how of researching a TV news story;
a smorgasbord of information sources for television news stories; and
a "to do" list of organizational things to consider and technical requirements needed when planning a film shoot.

A potted explanation of story verification and fact-checking techniques leads into the second part of disc one titled, "Shooting Your Story." This section is a junior reporter’s guide to selecting a suitable location for a news story. It also offers tips on surviving press conferences, on how to master the all-intrusive "doorstep" interview where journalists seek comments from people who refuse to give formal interviews, and explains the appropriate use of "vox pops", an industry term meaning "voice of the people".

There is a section that focuses on the importance of teamwork and instructs users about the many different roles reporter, producer, camera operator, sound technician, editor, and director all of whom contribute to the making of a three-minute news story. A clear understanding of these roles facilitates communication inside a newsroom and is vitally important outside the newsroom, particularly in hostile environments such as war zones or siege situations.

"Putting it Together" is the final part of the CD-ROM and may be found on disc two of the set. It contains an informative section on shot listing, which is logging the time codes of shots you wish to put in a story and is a practice that can save lots of time in the edit suite. The CD-ROM also points out that post-mortems of news stories are best conducted straight after a bulletin has been aired to ensure the next news program you make will improve on the last. This section also touches on legal issues that can surface during the news story making process, but most importantly the final part highlights the collaborative relationship between a journalist and an editor.

Without doubt, there are many lessons to be learned by the end of this training program. Most of the video clips feature knowledge and advice from professionals working in top-tier media organizations. These industry endorsements both boost the CD-ROM’s credibility and validate the training program content.

Beyond receiving valuable information about television news making processes, learners are encouraged throughout to use their own judgment when preparing news stories. In this regard, the CD-ROM creates an opportunity to learn the basics of making quality, credible television news away from the pressure-cooker environment of a busy television newsroom. This is important because most TV news editors are time poor and operate within tight deadlines, which means that there is little time to train new recruits. Novice journalists are often thrown into the deep end, so to speak, and are forced to sink or swim with little training. This learning tool may help new recruits stay afloat.

User-Friendliness and Navigability

Overall the CD-ROM is easy to navigate. As noted, the training program is contained on two separate discs and as soon as users click on the CD-ROM icon on their screen, a pop up text alerts them as to which categories may be found on each disc. The different sub-headings within each category may be viewed sequentially or in isolation. This is one of the great strengths of this CD-ROM training program.

While it is easy to navigate between the different categories listed on each disc it is not easy to exit either of the discs and then be quickly able to get back in. You may exit a disc by clicking on the Quit text which appears at the bottom right of the screen. As soon as this is done, the screen goes black and a long list of credits roll. There is no way of exiting from this credits list. The menu options only magically re-appear when the last name on the credit list has been revealed. Only then can the program be re-started or exited completely. It is best not to click on Quit twice because the credits may also roll twice.

TV News-The Story is a two disc set because of its liberal use of large video files and graphics. Its user-friendliness may be increased if it were reformatted onto one DVD disc in the future.

Interactivity

Video clips serve as an effective training tool. They are attention grabbing, visually exciting, and they are a good way of demonstrating "how to" information contained in the text. For example, in the final chapter of the CD-ROM, "Putting it Together", there’s a sub-section on Supers. By accessing this sub-section via text the user learns that Supers are on-screen words that provide brief information about the people or places in a news story. Upon reading this definition users can click on various picture boxes that download actual TV news stories to demonstrate the different ways Supers are used.

Sustainability

"TV News-The Story" is up-to-date with current trends and the technology used in producing TV news across the board. To extend its longevity, the CD-ROM should be updated every five years to allow for technological advances in the television industry and changing trends in covering news. For example, it used to be seemingly fashionable for news reporters to do several pieces-to-camera within slightly longer news stories, so they almost become part of the news story. At present, with the exception of the 60 Minutes program in Australia (where stories are celebrity reporter driven) and other similar programs it seems news reporters remain more in the background and let the stories speak for themselves.