1. Stage Five English unit
Presentations of Truth
Girraween High School

2. Introduction What is the role of a journalist? Entertainment
Sensitivities
Censorship
Resources:
SMH ‘Sacked for photo Americans were not meant to see’
Cartoon by Jenny Coopes ‘The first casualty of war is truth..’
Outcome 3: A student selects, uses, describes and explains how different technologies affect and shape meaning
Outcome 9: A student demonstrates understanding of the ways texts reflect personal and public worlds

3. Ethics in Journalism Censorship AJA Code of Ethics
How do ethics apply?
Role of audience in determining presentation of information
Resources:
Time Magazine: ‘The PG-Rated War’ by J Klein, 7/4/2003
Outcome 4: A student uses and describes language forms and features, and structures of texts appropriate to different purposes, audiences and contexts.
Outcome 9: A student demonstrates understanding of the ways texts reflect personal and public worlds.

4. Presentation of television news
How television news is presented?
How does this form of presentation effect the presentation of information? Why?
Differences between print and television news
Resources:
Time Magazine ‘The Trouble with Sitting on the Story’ by J Poniewozik, 28/4/2003
Media Watch
Outcome 3: A student selects, uses, describes and explains how different technologies affect and shape meaning.
Outcome 9: A student demonstrates understanding of the ways texts reflect personal and public worlds.

5. Truth in television news
Role of television news in society
Impact of language on presentation of truth
Entertainment factor
Different sources of media (local, national, global), and its effect on the presentation of information and the truth.
Whose version of the truth is it?
Resources:
Targeting Media: Television and Film
Cutting Edge: Operation Saddam, America’s Propaganda Battle (Part I)
Outcome 3: A student selects, uses, describes and explains how different technologies affect and shape meaning.
Outcome 9: A student demonstrates understanding of the ways texts reflect personal and public worlds.

6. ‘Selecting’ the news Audience of TV news Impact of ratings
Differing styles of presentation
Personalities in the news
Elements of television news (setting, structure etc.)
Priorities and agendas
Resources:
Targeting Media
Media Watch
Pre-taped news programs (Channel 7, 10 and ABC)
Bowling for Columbine (extracts)
Outcome 7: A student thinks critically and interpretively using information, ideas and increasingly complex arguments to respond to and compose texts in a range of contexts.

7. Presentation in TV news
How presentation effects the information conveyed
Impact/results of budgets in the production of news
Commercial versus Government owned
News styles
Role play task
Resources
Presenting the facts of news presentations
Pre-taped news (Channel 10 and SBS)
Outcome 6: A student experiments with different ways of imaginatively and interpretively transforming experiences, information and ideas into texts.

8. ‘The interview’ in television news
Role of the interviewer/interviewee
Strategies and agendas
Editing, and the power of the news station
Resources:
A Fine Line episodes 1-3 and study guide questions
Outcome 3: A student selects, uses, describes and explains how different technologies affect and shape meaning.

9. What do we want from the media?
What we would change?
How difficult is it to present ‘the truth’?
The ideal journalist, style and medium of news presentation.
What has been learnt from their own productions and the ‘behind the scenes’ information supplied by A Fine Line
Outcome 1: A student responds to and composes increasingly sophisticated and sustained texts for understanding, interpretation, critical analysis and pleasure.

10. Assessment task Stage 5 Outcomes assessed: A student:
1. responds to and composes increasingly sophisticated and sustained texts for understanding, interpretation, critical analysis and pleasure.
3. selects, uses, describes and explains how different technologies affect and shape meaning.
4. selects and uses language forms and features, and structures of texts according to different purposes, audiences and contexts, and describes and explains their effects on meaning.
6. experiments with different ways of imaginatively and interpretively transforming experience, information and ideas into texts.
7. thinks critically and interpretively using information, ideas and increasingly complex arguments to respond to and compose texts in a range of contexts.
9. demonstrates understanding of the ways texts reflect personal and public worlds.

11. Task:
Part A: 5 marks
You are required to select one-week night and watch three telecasts of nightly news (from the same night – you must clearly state your chosen date). One telecast must be either ABC or SBS.
You are required to list all the items (of news) as they appear in the telecast and take note of the time each item takes. The list should comprise a two-column table where each item is described/summarised (no more than 75 words) with time allocated to that item in the second column.

12. Part B: 15 marks
You are required to evaluate, compare and contrast the different styles of news presentation and the different content in each of the telecasts. Write this in the form of an essay. You may like to consider the following in your response:
Structure
Range of items covered
Means of presentation (the set)
Target audience
Image of the presenters (personalities)
Language used to present items
You must include an evaluation dealing with which telecast you think is most effective in its presentation of the nightly news.
Word limit:

13. Resources The Sydney Morning Herald (SMH)
Channel 7, 9, 10, SBS and ABC news telecasts
Cartoon by Jenny Coopes
Targeting Media: Television and Film (Lopez et al.)
Media Watch (Littlemore, Video Education Australia)
Cutting Edge (SBS)
Time Magazine
Bowling for Columbine (Moore, M.)
A Fine Line series (SBS)
A Fine Line study guide on MetroMagazine website:
Australian Journalist Association (AJA) Code of Ethics: