Behind the News
Our family had an interesting experience this past Wednesday. We got to watch my brother-in-law and his family on the national tv news. They live 12 hours away and we don't see them often, so it was nice to see the kids in motion. All week NBC had been doing a series on the "sandwich generation" - baby boomers with kids who were taking care of one or both parents. That's where how the news is made started to become revealed to us...Andrew and his wife aren't baby boomers, they were born after 1964.
As the 180 seconds of the story played out it appeared to us as if the story was written before the reporter had ever met them. The intro was pure fiction, they never thought about the kitchen table in regard to planning for a family. The interview with the psychologist was done BEFORE the filming with Andrew. So, his comments are not in reponse to them, but generic comments that were carefully placed into the piece.
At one point the reporter steps of the front porch of a home. A home you would assume was Andrew's, unless you had been there. Apparently they had a certain look they were going for in that shot and, well, Andrew's home didn't have the white picket fence thing they wanted. No problem, they just drove around the neighborhood and filmed the shot from someone else's front porch - the residents weren't even at home.
It was hours of shooting over an evening and morning which was edited down to about 3 minutes. Of course one isn't compensated for all that time - but you do prioritize cleaning the house when a news crew is coming, so that was a nice benefit.
We are proud of them, not just in how they carry themselves off in the piece, but in the ways they care for Bill every day. Here's the link to the transcript with a link to video.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11029742/
As the 180 seconds of the story played out it appeared to us as if the story was written before the reporter had ever met them. The intro was pure fiction, they never thought about the kitchen table in regard to planning for a family. The interview with the psychologist was done BEFORE the filming with Andrew. So, his comments are not in reponse to them, but generic comments that were carefully placed into the piece.
At one point the reporter steps of the front porch of a home. A home you would assume was Andrew's, unless you had been there. Apparently they had a certain look they were going for in that shot and, well, Andrew's home didn't have the white picket fence thing they wanted. No problem, they just drove around the neighborhood and filmed the shot from someone else's front porch - the residents weren't even at home.
It was hours of shooting over an evening and morning which was edited down to about 3 minutes. Of course one isn't compensated for all that time - but you do prioritize cleaning the house when a news crew is coming, so that was a nice benefit.
We are proud of them, not just in how they carry themselves off in the piece, but in the ways they care for Bill every day. Here's the link to the transcript with a link to video.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11029742/
posted by Kathy @ 1:22 PM
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