My thoughts in general: On YouTube a few weeks ago I found a newscast about residents of Mobile, Alabama, who think there is a leprechaun in their community. Several residents are interviewed about the supposed leprechaun, including the man in the picture above. Another man is interviewed who talks about carrying around a "leprechaun flute" which he says was handed down for a thousand years from his great-great-grandfather "who was Irish." The newscast also showed an amateur sketch of the leprechaun:
The images above are taken from the newscast. If you can't tell from my description, the newscast (and the newscasters) treated the story lightly, and those interviewed seem to even be poked fun at. Though I think the story is pretty funny, I thought it was interesting (1) that it was actually a news story and (2) that the news station did not treat the story as news but almost as a comedy piece. For your viewing, here it is:
My thoughts on application: I have a couple of thoughts on application. First, perhaps this piece could be used to teach production students about creating newscast. Second, and more importantly (to me, anyway), this could be used to begin a discussion about how to treat people that you are reporting on and interviewing. Thinking about the gender chapter from Seeing and Writing, this newscast would also be an interesting point from which to discuss the portrayal of race in the media.
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