TV News Anaylsis and Lesson Plan

I watched the WCCO news at 10:00 on Wednesday evening.  First of all,  I was surprised that the first commercial break didn't happen until 21 minutes into the program.  But, there were also commercials at 27 min and 31 min and the program finally ended at 10:34.  Here's the play-by-play:

2 min - Coon Rapids Shaken baby syndrome victim
1 min - Apple Valley computer hacking victim by a Cleveland Indian
3 min - Michelle Bachman and other election issues
1 min - more slots at Canterbury proposed
1 min - Daughter killed on Grand Ave
2 min - disturbing DVD sent by PETA to Middle School activist
30 sec - Amazon under scrutiny for selling controversial petaphile book 
30 sec - record setting weather!
1 min - Gold prices hit another record
5 min - Gopher stadium and Gopher football
1 min - ad for "The Defender" on same network
30 sec - Fitzgerald shipwreck revisited
3 min - weather
30 sec - upcoming news
4 min - commercials
2 min - Vikings news
4 min - commercials
1 min - Timberwolves news
3 min - commercials
30 sec - weather

There were four commercial breaks but they all happened in the last 13 minutes of the news show.  All of the news was local.  There was no national or international news.  Local news had 13 minutes of coverage.  Local sports also dominated the news with 8 minutes of collected coverage.  It was beneficial for the newscasters because there were a few records set, like the weather temperature and the price of gold. 

I was really surprised at how much emphasis is put on the locality of each news segment.  The victims and perpetrators are described solely on their locale and occupation.   

Here is my lesson plan surrounding news:

The students have spent a week learning about different techniques that each station uses in order to dramatize their version of the news story.  For instance, The Daily Show uses humor, sarcasm, fake news, interviews, and wit to report the news.  CNN uses dramatic effect such as large graphs, location-oriented reporting, and multiple points of view to report their news.  The evening local news uses personal stories to tell the news, like interviewing a local resident to comment how the national news story has affected them personally.  FOX News explores the conservative base with opinion-based news talk shows and national news. 

Divide the classroom into groups of four.  Each group will be given the same news story to report (i.e. the mid-term election) but each group will be assigned a different point of view in which to tell the story.  Each group will be assigned either CNN, The Daily Show, the local evening news, or FOX News as a point of view in which to report the oil spill.  The group needs to choose on which aspect of the election they will report on (keeping in mind the target audience).  They can choose any angle on the broad election topic as long as it’s geared towards their news channel. 

The group will write a dialogue to report in the mock news show according to the point of view, target audience, and persuasive techniques in which they were given.  They need to use effective persuasive techniques to express their point of view as well as engaging their assigned target audience in their video.  One or two group members will act as news reporters while the other two or three group members work on camera operation and simple set design and props.