Posted to both my mass comm. blogs. -- pe
Trinity United Church of Christ, the predominantly black church on the South Side of Chicago that found itself in the news this month when church member (and Democratic presidential candidate) Barack Obama was attacked over sermons by its senior pastor, is trying to clear the air by posting video clips of the pastor's sermons to YouTube. The clips contrast the "sound bites" by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright that were shown on Fox News with longer excerpts, and they show them in context. In Communications 387 (Lit./Journ.), we will watch them, as we begin to explore how different journalists are covering the presidential campaign. They should be of interest to students of basic newswriting and media ethics as well, since they demonstrate the difficulty of taking a representative sound bite or actuality from a longer discourse.
The contrast is instructive. Here's a link to Trinity church's YouTube page. Click first on the Video Log 1 clip titled "WE ARE TRINITY." Compare the promotional video you see to the descriptions of the church you have read in the media. Click next on the video captioned "FOX Lies!! Irresponsible Media! Barack Obama Pastor Wright." (The caption lets you know where they're coming from, doesn't it? I'd be more charitable to Fox than that, but you can watch it for yourselves. "You decide," to coin a phrase.) What differences do you see between the sound bite aired on Fox news and the 10-minute excerpt? How accurately does it capture the essence of the sermon? What does it catch? What does it leave out?
A weblog for Pete Ellertsen's mass communications students at Benedictine University Springfield.
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- COMM 209: In class Monday
- COMM 209: Assignment for Monday
- Links to my article, Gov. Huckabee's TV interview
- COMM 317: A couple of blogposts on truth, "PoMo."
- COMM 209: In class Monday
- COMM 209, 317, 387: Sound bites
- First-rate newspapering on a ukulele?
- Guide for free-lancers (which is every one of us w...
- COMM 317: Now this ...
- COMM 317: Link to Bill Moyers show
- COMM 317: Term paper due April 1
- COMM 317: Another, pro-invasion viewpoint on Iraq
- COMM 317: Bong hits 4 free speech
- COMM 317: Bong hits 4 ethics (& announcement)
- COMM 317: Snow day quiz
- COMM 317: Libel in a nutshell
- COMM 317: Ethics 'lab' at Northwestern
- COMM 209: Story assignment, 'Declare Your Major Day'
- COMM 209: 'Actualities' or radio sound bites
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About Me
- Pete
- Springfield (Ill.), United States
- I'm a retired English, journalism and cultural studies teacher at Springfield College in Illinois (acquired by Benedictine University and subsequently closed). I coordinate jam sessions for the "Clayville Pioneer Academy of Music" at Clayville Historic Site and the Prairieland Strings dulcimer club, and I sing in the choir and the contemporary praise team at Peace Lutheran Church in Springfield. On Hogfiddle I post links and video clips for our sessions and workshops on the mountain dulcimer (a.k.a. "hog fiddle"), as well as research notes on folklore and cultural studies, hymnody and traditional Anglo-Celtic and Scandinavian music. I also posted assignments and readings in my interdisciplinary humanities classes. The Mackerel Wrapper (now on hiatus), carried assignments and readings for my mass comm. students. I started teaching b/log when I chaired SCI-Benedictine's assessment committee, and reopened it as the privatization of public schools grew increasingly troubling and closer to home.
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