CI 5472 - Blog Post Eight

Local news minutes.

Station: KARE 11 Sunrise

30 seconds hair commercial – Head and Shoulders

4:03

Stray pets as people give them up, can't afford them. Representative of rescue groups, questions for families about the qualities and practices of rescue animal shelters.

30 seconds hair commercial – Natural Instincts

12:56

Color Purple star __________ answering some interview questions.
Latoya London

30 seconds hair commercial – Natural Instincts

1:05

Minnesota Wild status and "Wild Around the World."

30 seconds hair commercial – Head and Shoulders

3:47

Job Swap. MNDoT, MV.



The first story was really an appeal to pet owners to seek humane treatment for pets they can no longer afford. It wasn't a human interest story, but it might be a humane interest story. Sorry about that.

Part of the rhetoric was that the interviewed advocate of rescue shelters brought a cute little dog to sit on her lap as she discussed ways to protect one's pet. Her case was largely just spreading information about opportunities available to pet owners. (She advised people to "Google it," which is fine if the owners have internet access, but if people are donating pets because of tough economic times, their internet access might be limited.) The interview was live, so editing was minimal.

The second segment was simply an extended interview with a cast member of "The Color Purple," which is playing in town, and former American Idol star, La Toya London. The segment was twelve minutes, far too long to air on television, and oddly it was done in front of a green screen, presumably to fabricate an artificial interview location for the TV edition. The purpose was partially to plug the play, but it was also a bit of an indulgence on the part of the interviewer, who apparently was a big fan of London's. The story showed limited editing, and I would describe it as an "entertainment" story.

The "Wild Around the World" segment was a glorified trivia question about a foreign Wild player. It was tangentially a sports segment, though it had little to do with sports and was in no way a "story." It was a thinly veiled method of promoting the Wild.

The final segment was kind of a "day in the life" of a Department of Motor Vehicles worker, filing and directing all sorts of paperwork. It had little pragmatic value, and while it didn't make any rhetorical arguments about the DMV, it was at the least informational about DMV jobs.