News Analysis

News will be the main component of my radio extract, so I will now analyse the way news is presented in a variety of different formats, looking at newspapers, online news and radio news to establish similarities in terms of conventions.

I will first analyse news stories from BBC news website and other national news websites I will look at a variety of different stories to see if they contain the 5W's and news values regardless of what type of story it is.

I am going to analyse a number of different types of stories including the following:

• Celebrity/entertainment
• Politics
• Sports
• Business
• Health
• Education
• Disaster
• Technology
• Science
• Crime

News Values

News values are the factors that help to explain how journalists and editors decided that certain news stories were accepted as newsworthy whilst others were not. These can also be applied to radio news bulletins.

Immediacy - Has it happened recently? Is the story 'breaking'?
This usually pushes a news story to the front page or on a radio it will be the first presented story.

Familiarity - Is it culturally or geographically close to us in London/Britain/Europe/USA?

Amplitude - Is it a big event or one which involves large numbers of people?

Frequency - Does the event happen often?

Surprise - Is it an unusual or unexpected event?

Impact - Can we identify with the story as having a profound effect on our own lives? Does the story contain elements that would make us feel threatened?

Predictability - Did we expect it to happen?

Continuity - Has this story already been defined as news? Is it part of an ongoing or long-running story?

Conflict - Does the story contain drama in describing disagreements, arguments, fights or battles between two or more people/organisations?

Elite People - Does the story contain concern well-known people, such as celebrities?

Personalisation - Is it a human interest story?

Negativity - Is it bad news?

Scandal - Is the story likely to provoke moral outrage from parts of the audience?

Balance - The story may be selected to balance other news, such as a human survival story to balance a number of stories concerning death. 

When analysing news stories in more detail I will look out for what news values they contain. This will help me when creating my own news stories and incorporating different news values making them newsworthy.

The 5 W's

Who is it about?

What happened?

Where did it happen?

When did it happen?

Why did it happen?

The 5 W's are the essential parts of information that readers, viewers and listeners expect to find within a news story. Journalists and news editors tend to include this information towards the beginning of the story, this allows the audience to determine whether they will keep reading/watching/listening, but also means that if a story has to be cut this can happen without losing the most vital information.

This therefore means that when i create my own news stories I should include the 5W's in my stories and within the first 2 paragraphs.

Below I have annotated the 5W's on a news story about Zimbabwean leader resigning after 37 years.

News story showing the 5W's

Preliminary Task Evaluation

Below I have compiled a list of things that I have learnt from completing my preliminary task which will aid me when planning, recording and editing my final radio extract.


Adobe Audition 1.5 allows you and edit out any mistakes or unecassary pauses - this means that i don't have to keep stopping/starying when recording if my actors make mistakes, thus is time saving and efficient.

• When selecting the people for my preliminary taks I didn't give too much thought to representation or directing actors however I will ensure that I do give thought and careful directions to actors when it comes to final piece.
• When recording the actor needs to stand relatively close to the microphone
• Each voice is recorded separately and then all added together at the end allowing for easy editing
• The ability to cut and paste different segments from audio file to another and manipulate gaps

I decided to use a basic jingle with emphasis on the voice rather than background noise, however I did include 2 impact sounds for effect but I may decide to have more background noise/music in my final radio extract.



For the archive clip I used I used sound effects of different camera clicks, some more quite and some louder ones as well as background murmuring.

Finished Preliminary Task

Here is my finished preliminary task for SportMania FM

Preliminary Task Potential Sound Effects

As I will be recording my preliminary task later this week I need to choose a few potential sound effects for my archive clip and jingle. I also need to choose music for jingle I may not need to use all of the below.

I need the following music and sound effects for my task:

- Crowd cheering for archive clip
- Camera clicking for archive clip during speech
- Dramatic music over jingle
- Dramatic music over radio name
- Murmuring in background of srchive clip
- Impact sound for jungle

Below are some potential tracks that I have decided would be useful to use in my preliminary task:

Preliminary Script

For my preliminary task I had to create a five minute extract from an imaginary local radio show which will include a jingle, a presenter introducing a guest, the guest responding and an archive clip featuring the guest.

I didn't spend a lot of time researching or drafting the script and I didn't listen to the radio for this task, everything came from what memory in terms of what is heard on real radio.

The aim of this task is to help me learn how to use the equipment and how sound effects and editing works all in which will be essential for my final radio extract to sound as authentic as possible.

“SPORTmania FM 92.4 –REFUSE TO LOSE”

PRESENTER: welcome back your listening to SPORTmania FM! Where we have a very secial guest, wentworth FC’s one and only Damian Staines who scored a hatrick and was named man of the match on his Debut against Brent City. First of all a huge congratulations and well done for bringing it home, how did it feel?

STAINES: Honestly it was extraordinary, I always knew football was what I wanted to pursue and now that ive not only achieved that goal., literally (BOTH CHUCKLE) but come out with such great results, I just can’t believe it but it feels great to give something back to the club that never gave up on me

PRESENTER: well we managed to capture that moment live thoughts when the match ended lets take a listen

PLAY RECORDING

(FANS HEARD IN BACKGROUND SCREAMING AND CHEERING)

STAINES: Wow I cant believe it, I’m so happy I can’t even begin to… STUTTER.. to put in to words how I feel, just I just feel so blessed and honoured right now, I want to thank my manger and God for this opportunity and my team mates out there for believing in me and giving me those chances to score haha..

AS Media brief

For my AS media coursework, I will be scripting, recording and editing a five-minute sequence from a made-up local radio show which will include a news bulletin, a jingle, adverts and presenters.

Before creating a script, I need to carry out research on the structure of news stories and presenting styles, to ensure that my radio station sounds as realistic as possible. Before I carry out this research I am going to script my preliminary task which will include a jingle, a presenter introducing a guest and a guest responding and an archive clip featuring the guest.

From this task, I will then evaluate what went well and what I need to improve and what aspects to include or not include in my main radio extract.