Michelle's Comm 303 BLOG

For this assignment I listened to a news story of Report: Foster Kids Face Tough Times After Age 18. It was interesting to compare a broadcast story to how a print journalist would deliver this news story. I found this story on NPR.org and every story that I listened to began with a commercial that somehow cross branded the product they were advertising and how it can be used with NPR. This particular voice of the broadcast was just a reporter, she was not a participant in the news. Due to all of the sound bites and other sources this would be considered a package report. As far as the aural style of writing this particular broadcast used simple sentences, but the reporter spoke fast and it was hard for me to keep up with what was really important about the story. The report was wonderfully written in active voice and all of the attribution was in the beginning of anyones statements. The broadcast also used a lot of “sound bites” from the kids and adults they interviewed. As a listener these sound bites kept me engaged a lot longer because the voice was changing, there was noise going on in the background and it allowed me to visualize myself on the scene.

This was different from what a print journalist would wrote because the goal of a print journalist is brevity. They have to get everything said and done within the first couple of sentences for the reader to either keep reading or continue to the next story. The print journalist would have paraphrased all of the quotes provided and more than likely would not go into as much detail in the story because they are only given so much space in the paper. Although, neither one of these medias is better than the other they both have their pros and cons.