The document contains summaries for four potential news stories: 1) The impact of school mergers in Melbourne and challenges obtaining photos and interviews. 2) Issues with animal abandonment and evaluating programs to address the problem. 3) Continuing drug usage in Melbourne and examining perspectives of users and victims. 4) Challenges for a journalism student in finding story ideas, researching sources, using new technology, and applying theory to create effective news stories.

1. ATS3656
Assignment 3
Student ID:
22053980
Jacqueline
Duong http://ejournalismjacquiduong.weebly.com/

3. CONTENT SUMMARY
• Story about the impact of multiple schools
merging to form one larger school
• Worsened in some areas because of population growth
but diminishing facilities
• Government putting funding on hold
STORY CHOICE and SIGNIFICANCE
•The story is timely and has newsworthiness because
there were a number of reports about a shortage of
schools in the area
•It is significant because it affects different
communities across Melbourne

4. AUDIO VISUAL SUMMARY
 Includes video vox pop and photos
 Photos were hard to come by because the
school was not really keen to have photos of
its general grounds taken while students
were around
 Vox pop was challenging because not many
students around uni understood what school
mergers were
 Asking people is always a challenge because
they are reluctant to appear in video and/or
online

5. CONTENT SUMMARY
 Many animals abandoned, homeless or not
adequately cared for
 Want to look at why this occurs (frequency,
circumstances, consequences)
 Examine the programs and initiatives that
exist to counter these problems
 Look at whether these programs are
effective and if there is more that could be
done

6. AUDIO VISUAL PLANS
 Record audio of interview with ‘talent’ to
create audio grabs (about 2 mins)
 Could have different views in audio
 Photos of animal hospitals and facilities
 Graphs and data images of problems that
exist as well as charting effectiveness of
programs

7. STORY CHOICE and SOURCES
 No ‘break through’ news piece, but always
prevalent, especially in local newspapers
 Different spin on issues: rather than another
report about animal cruelty, look at reasons
why it is happening
 Research for education campaigns, facts and
figures about frequency of occurrence and
effectiveness of programs
 Interviews with RSPCA, Lort-Smith Animal
hospital, Vet students and animal rights
advocates

8.  New report shows drug usage is not
diminishing, experts saying war on drugs is
failing
 Briefly look at who is using drugs, what type
and why
 Maybe photos of ‘nightclub’ and ‘drug’ scene
in Melbourne
 Has a lot of timeliness and relevance with
multiple reports in the news
 Interview health experts and potential casual
users

9. STORY SUMMARY
 Feature story relates to the hard news about
drug use in our communities
 Examine victim’s perspective: people who
have used drugs as well as family members
who have been impacted by others using
 Effectiveness of programs implemented and
debate about decriminalisation
 A culture of drug use?

10. AUDIO VISUAL PLANS
 Interview from victim’s perspective to draw
human interest element
 Have audio grabs and video on top of photos
and potentially reporting
 Photos of drug rehabilitation centres
 Vox pop of society, either in audio format or
in print with photos

11. STORY CHOICE and SOURCES
 Significant because very current and
newsworthy, affects many parts of society
 Wanted to highlight different perspective –
drug users are not all ‘bad people’ who
actively choose to live their lives like that
 Sources are health professionals, drug
experts, rehab clinic personnel, victims and
family of victims

12.  Finding suitable ideas that were newsworthy
and had enough depth to write a feature and
investigative story
 Doing preliminary research to find potential
sources and information
 Using new software and technology
 Keeping up with lecture content and theories
of electronic journalism as a DE student
 Putting theory into practice and applying
hands on experience to put together
effective news stories