Contribute to ReadWriteThink / RSS / FAQs / Site Demonstrations / Contact Us

Mock Television Newscast or Editorial Assignment

Purpose of assignment: In this assignment, you and a partner will identify a current social issue and develop a three- to five-minute mock television newscast or editorial presentation about it using various satiric techniques. You can model your television script on a segment of Saturday Night Live's "Weekend Update," The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, or The Colbert Report.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, The Colbert Report, and the "Weekend Update" segment of Saturday Night Live base their satire upon recent events, generally news stories from the week prior to the original broadcast. All three programs originate in New York City, so consulting the Web version of a paper like The New York Times or a national news magazine, such as Time, Newsweek, or U.S. News and World Report, with a publication date close to the date of the original broadcast may help you to understand the issues underlying the satiric portrayals. Your goal is to imitate the form of the mock newscast, which occurs at the beginning of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. "Weekend Update" occurs 30 minutes into the broadcast of Saturday Night Live.

Audience: The audience for this assignment is your teacher and your classmates.

Prewriting:

• Select, view, and analyze an episode of one of the three programs listed above that you wish to imitate.
• Name the program and its original broadcast date.
• What are the news items that form the basis of the segment?
• How does the newscaster make use of visual support (sound bites of other media broadcasts, photos, or slogans, for example)?
• Besides making fun of the subject matter or the personalities involved in the news, what is the overall effect of the satiric message as compared to the original intent of the message as a news item or a profile of an individual?


• Working with your partner, or as your teacher directs, brainstorm several contemporary social issues, who is affected by them, and what needs to be done to address each issue.
• In the manner of Swift, propose an absolutely outrageous solution to address the problem.
• Determine how the solution would be implemented.
• What persons, either real or fictional, might endorse your solution?
• What potential objections might you encounter (both those that you might concede and those that you would refute)?
• Develop an appropriate closing for your proposal.

Writing, Revising, Editing

• First, write the address for your newscaster to read to the “television” audience (only a page or two long), which you will practice and read from in making your presentation.
• Once you’ve written your script, brainstorm what sorts of images, audio tracks, or videos you might select from the Internet to enhance the satiric effects of your newscast.
• Locate and download your desired images, audio, or video to a folder that you can access as you prepare a PowerPoint presentation to provide the background images for your mock broadcast. Using a specific search engine, try searching the names of the people involved with your social issue. Using your knowledge of music (and what you may have downloaded to your mp3 player), determine which excerpts might work to enhance your production. For news clips, try doing a search from a major broadcast news producer, like CNN, CBS, NBC, or ABC.
• Keep in mind that many images that you find on the Internet are copyrighted, and you must have permission to use them. You may wish to consider using images from a royalty-free website such as Shutterstock.com.
• Format your script for television.
• After you’re satisfied with what the newscaster says, using a word processor, enter the newscaster’s text in an 18-point, serif font.
• Go to the formatting menu and divide the page into two unequal columns; the left should be approximately 4 inches wide, the space between the columns about .02 inches, and the right column 1.98 inches wide. This format will space out the newscaster’s text, making it easier to read.
• Use the narrow column on the right to describe what images, audio, or video you may wish to use to support the newscaster’s point.
• Arrange the audio-visual material in your newscaster’s script, making marginal notes about where to include each.
• For help with developing your PowerPoint presentation, consult the PowerPoint Tool Tips) printout.
• Practice your presentation with your PowerPoint presentation so that it fits within a three- to five-minute broadcast segment.