Mass Media

3 Pages 666 Words

In watching the 5:00 and 10:00 news I was presented with many different stories that appeared to be original or live recordings by the television station. I was able to pick out and recognize the difference between original news footage from the station and a video news release. The video news release that I’m going to be referring to was from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester. It dealt with a new procedure of detecting Anthrax that gives doctors results sometimes in as fast as an hour. The reason that I knew it was not an original piece was that at the bottom of the screen it blatantly said “Mayo Clinic Video” in the middle of the segment that features many clips of laboratory testing. One other thing that tipped me off was an interview with a doctor at the clinic that showed no sign of a station reporter asking him questions and his remarks were not aimed at answering any specific question(s).
In the case of this video release I did not see any unfair or inaccurate information that was presented. The news station did however do their own interpretation of how this procedure works and why it is so fast in detecting Anthrax. This interpretation dealt strictly with facts that helped to explain things in terms that most viewers would be able to understand and did not sway the viewer as to if this was a good or bad finding.
In the case of this video release I strongly agree with the station airing a segment on detecting Anthrax. I’m sure that the Mayo Clinic is looking for some publicity in sending a video to the station, but in this case it is for the sake of helping our society. They are advertising a way to detect a very life threatening disease in new and faster ways. This breakthrough could possibly save lives. I feel that with what is going on around us right now a news story such as this it is very justified in presenting itself to the public.
With this video, the public relations professional is responsible for making ...