I was watching all of the snow storm coverage Saturday morning when I noticed that Channel 4 News covered the story in a different way. While the rest of the news stations were just stating the facts such as how many inches it has snowed and when it will stop, Channel 4 News took on a different approach. They had their viewers send in “snowy” pictures. These pictures were taken of the blizzard outside of their homes. Some of the pictures that were sent in showed tables and chairs on their decks buried in snow. Other pictures showed residents’ shoveling their driveways, which almost seemed impossible. Channel 4 News also covered a story about a massive snowball fight in Washington D.C. This snowball fight was organized through a facebook page and it generated over 6,000 members. It took place in front of the Reeves Center and was said to start around 2 p.m. This fight was cleverly titled “Snowpocalypse ’10”.
The writer (Carissa Dimargo) of the snowball fight made this news article different from the typical news coverage stories. She told the story from a different view and wrote about how people turned a intense snow storm into an exciting one. It’s not every snow storm that people get together from all over a district and have a snowball fight. This is what made this news about the snow fall new and interesting It separated itself from all of the other generic news channels covering the same story. Channel 4 News also had people who were involved in the snow send in pictures of how they were snowed in. This was also another way for them to cover the story in a new light.
The news values in these two article were proximity, impact and the bizarre factor. Proximity is used because the news station covered the snowball fight that occurred in Washington, D.C which is very close to us. Impact is also used because the snow impacted everyone is the Virginia and Maryland area and that is where the news was being covered. And lastly the bizarre factor is used because a snowball fight does not occur every day making it bizarre. These three news values made these two stories about the snow a success.
February 7, 2010 @ 6:09 pm
It’s nice to see that news reporters from Northern Virginia are taking on this big snowstorm with a positive approach. Other than school being cancelled, I feel like the snow can seem more like a burden to everyone than something to be enjoyed. Seems like the more the media portrays the storm in a positive light, the more optimistic and less stressed out the public will be. Way to spot out an upbeat story about the storm and share it!