In recent news, Katie Couric reports on the Anti-government protests in Manama, Bahrain. Couric opens the news for the day with a general statement detailing the four main stories of the day. Even the simple act of this general overview appears organized for it begins with the biggest story that takes place outside of the United States, (Bahrain) followed by the second biggest story that takes place within the United States: “a turmoil of a different kind on our home front”, and finally, it concludes with a statement about the two less urgent stories that will be reported on later in the news cast. This transitions into the Bahrain story, which begins by providing a map detailing the whereabouts of this Persian Gulf kingdom. In addition to this, video is shown as well as specific details provided by the anchor, which are captioned, at the bottom of the screen. A phone call with an at the scene reporter tells of the graphic events of the night before as well as the “eerie feeling” that occurs after seeing all the damage and families who have been injured. Several individuals comment on this “high risk situation” and its likely effect in our culture.
While Katie Couric does most of the reporting, there are also several other contributors who play a part in the stories advancement. To begin with, there is the on-site reporter: Toula Wahou who provides a lot of the current footage, as well as updated current information on the protests. This is followed by the generic narrating voice (another reporter in the studio) who explains more of the facts, but doesn’t provide a source. Despite the lack of a source during this part of the newscast, several individual commentors are mentioned shortly after with their credibility listed as a footnote to their names. Some of the contributors include: David Martin the National Security Correspondent, David Mack a former US. Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates, and an interviewee Richard Haass who is the President of the Council of Foreign Relations.
The story was carried out in a logical sense beginning with background information for viewers to a specific play-by-play of the Bahrain protests. The story was rather insightful, and provided a satisfying amount of information to the audience. While most stories generally contain persons who provide only a sentence or so on an issue, this story presented interviewee Richard Haass at the end of the newscast to rap up the breaking story was a more specialized perspective on the issue at hand. It was good that the interview lasted longer then usual for it provided several quality answers to imperative questions for the spectators watching. Despite the fact that I generally liked the structure of the newscast, I was surprised to see that the male narrating voice who provided a significant amount of details during the newscast failed to mention the source where all these statistics were coming from. Thus, I would recommend that CBS News provide a clearer picture of their sources to help increase the credibility of the station, as well as reassure skeptical audiences that the information is in fact authentically reliable.
Superb.
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