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Lesson 3 – Newsgathering – How does TV find news stories?

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Starter

Please find out what the main news story is for today! You can use any method – but check with the teacher first. Write it down in your exercise book.

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Starter What was the main story? What method did you use to find out?

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How is news sourced and gathered? Watch this video:

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Sourcing and newsgathering News can be gathered and sourced in various ways: • Dedicated TV channel teams – BBC • News agencies – Press Association, Reuters, Associated Press • News aggregators – Internet-based, Google News, Popurls 5

Sourcing and newsgathering Dedicated TV Channel Team – The BBC Newsgathering Department provides live coverage and news reports to all their news outlets. It is the world’s largest newsgathering operation. It has 41 international bureaux and 7 across the UK and Ireland. Journalists make up the vast majority of the 600 staff. A lot goes on behind the scenes. 6

Sourcing and newsgathering News Agencies – The Press Association gathers news, sport, entertainment and images, the stories of which are delivered via a ‘wire’ – Mediapoint Wire is the official name. It acts as a central point for news, and content is filed by reporters and journalists and is available for other news teams to use by subscription. Reuters is another news agency. 7

Sourcing and newsgathering News Aggregators – these are generally Internetbased or application-based on mobile technology, and produced by a computer algorithm to search and compile news stories which have the most hits. Usually compiled by RSS feeds. There are various types – social media and newspaper-based ones.

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Sourcing and newsgathering News Aggregators We are going to look at these three: Google News – updates in real time from newspapers Popurls – RSS feeds from social media aggregator sites Metanews – one of the oldest news aggregators, founded in 1997 – tech, business, science news 9

News aggregators – Google News Stories in more detail updated in real time

Shows the source of the news

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The top stories are listed!

News aggregators – Popurls Can also be shared through social networking

Type of news

Social media sources

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News aggregators – Metanews

Reuters News Agency feed

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News aggregators Browse the three news aggregator websites: • Google News • Popurls • Metanews Can you find a ‘hard’ and a ‘soft’ news story? 13

Deconstructing a news story Using the 5 Ws rule for news stories, deconstruct one ‘hard’ and one ‘soft’ story with a partner. WHO WHAT WHERE WHEN WHY Complete the worksheet you have been given.

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Plenary You have looked at news aggregator websites. The starter activity today was to find the main news story of the day.

Was the main news story the same? Has the main news story changed on the news aggregator website since you last looked? 15

Homework Research a ‘local’ news story. Use newsgathering techniques to write a report using the 5 Ws. Try: • Newspapers • Social networking sites • Regional TV news programmes 16