Limitation in Broadcast reporting?

By Joyce Choi

It does bother me sometimes that we need to get nat sound, motions and good concise quotes. The readings "Natural Sound Stories" and "Staged, Staging, Stages" in some ways convinced me that these are the elements crucial to the reporting. These nat sounds, motions and original quotes are not just there to make story interesting - but they should be part of the reality, they should give credibility to journalists' reporting and it is a matter of the journalists' ability to get these elements.

Just as a good newspaper reporter needs good interviewing skills, research skills and writing skills (altogether, reporting skills) to get the fullest picture of what's happening; for those who do not explain by words, but by sounds and visuals need another type of reporting skills to tell the story. With this concept in mind, I convinced myself that it's the matter of my bad broadcast reporting skills that make broadcast journalism seem a bit less genuine.

Having said that, I still holds the idea that if we are searching for story subjects with sounds and motions - we are discriminating many many stories. While it's true "everybody has a story to tell", not everybody or every story subject has something to tell in sounds or motions. Are we fair to such stories? Or it's just a matter of craft and there are always ANOTHER way to do it (with intelligence and planning)?