Teaching News Terrifically in the 21st Century 2013 | Page 7

Volume 2, 2013

Page 7

Second place, graduate-student division

Many eyewitnesses … but
did they see the same thing?

By Robin Blom
Ball State University
Types of courses the idea could be used in:
newswriting, reporting
Target level: freshmen, sophomores
What is the goal of the assignment or
exercise?
This exercise gives students a taste of reporting in a hectic and messy news environment, in
which they constantly receive new details through
a variety of channels (in-person interviews, Twitter,
Facebook, etc.). Importantly, they need to figure out
rapidly whether those information pieces are true or
false, especially eyewitness reports. The performance
of eyewitnesses in correctly remembering and describing events is often not covered in basic reporting courses. This exercise can lead off a lecture about
the difficulty for people to remember important
events in their lives and how question framing by
journalists can lead people to create false memories.
How does the assignment or exercise work?
Outside the classroom, three volunteers are told
that they are having lunch in a pub and then watch
a 2-minute clip of a bar fight. They are the eyewitnesses. The other students are reporters for a local
newspaper and can interview the eyewitnesses to get
information for a news story.
After the interviews, the students are writing their story. They get additional information
on a projector screen that shows an iPad and a
cell phone. The iPad features a Twitter feed that is
prepared for the exercise with PowerPoint. The instructor can manually add new tweets on th