SHU Memorial Coverage -- KDKA and Trib Comparison
The click of a staple gun echoed in a courtyard at Seton Hill University on Monday morning as students tacked the name of each soldier who has died in Iraq and Afghanistan to a temporary memorial.Note how the pace of the writing matches the pace of the memorial itself. Great use of details. Now let's look at KDKA-TV's report.The symbolic salute would be heard more than 2,300 times as students affixed a business card-sized "brick" to a 10-by-20-foot flag that represented a Living Wall memorial.
"By taking a few moments to read the name of each fallen soldier and place it on the Living Wall, we will dedicate these few hours today to their commitment and their heroism," said senior Jeremy Burkett during a 10 a.m. unveiling of the wall. -- Patti Dobranski Living Wall memorial created (Tribune-Review)
[If you click the link, first you'll have to sit through an ad, and then sit through the anchors' introduction, before getting to the reporter's live report.]This wall holds the name of more than 2000 fallen American soldiers who died in Ira -- Iraq and Afghanistan. Now the soldiers were taking a class here -- I mean, the-- the students were taking a class here at Seton Hill University when they came up with the idea with the help of their teacher that made the wall a reality. --Mary Berecky
Live broadcasting is hard to do. During the time I was a radio news intern, I made plenty of mistakes. But since the TV crew showed up on campus long after the wall was finished and the ceremony was over, there really was no need for a live report. The students and faculty member who appeared in videotaped clips sounded a lot more coherent than Berecky does in the live excerpt I transcribed above. But let's compare the prose from the written version that appears on the KDKA website:
Students at Seton Hill University in Greensburg have erected a temporary memorial to soldiers who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan.Snore! Let's go back to Dobranski:The living wall memorial has more than 2,300 business card-sized tags with the names of each soldier.
The tags are attached to a 10 x 20 foot flag.
Students say by taking a few moments to read the names of the fallen soldiers, they are honoring the soldiers' commitment and heroism.
The memorial will be on display at the college until Sunday.
The first name was 36-year-old Air Force Master Sgt. Evander E. Andrews Jr., of Solon, Maine, who died Oct. 10, 2001, in Qatar.Full disclosure -- I'm a writing teacher who rarely watches TV. I'm terribly biased in favor of the written word, whether in print or online. This report doesn't do a very good job of highlighting the strengths of TV as a medium. The TV is good for immediacy and emotional impact, but this particular report did not capture the ceremony itself, it just featured talking heads. The emotional core of this story is the footage of the flag itself, and the close-ups of the memorial cards affixed to the flag. Visually that was edited together nicely to form a good narrative.About 15 minutes later, 50 soldiers' names had been read in chronological order of their deaths. The last name in the first line touched the tip of the lowest red stripe of the makeshift flag. The memorial is set up at the Katherine Mabis McKenna Center on the Greensburg campus.
In his opening statement, Burkett quoted Martin Luther King's assertion that between birth and inevitable death, decisions people make define their character.
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