THE NEWS IS A JOKE: Assignment 2
POST ONE: REFLECTION
Our third ‘The News is a Joke’ class was certainly one of the best classes I’ve had so far whilst at RMIT. Before we had Paul Richards come into class to enlighten on the plans for the end of the semester celebration and showcasing of our media products from the studio. I think I can say this for everyone in the class, that we’re all looking forward to presenting our work from the semester and celebrating with one another and our family and friends in a couple months.
The class itself began as per usual, we watched a few clips of Jon Stewart and The Daily Show, to tie in with the weeks reading which was ‘The Daily Show: Discursive Integration and the Reinvention of Political Journalism’. The reading highlighted the evolution of news and how it has been reshaped and modelled to both entertain and inform. As we went over the reading in class, we discussed how comedy news (such as The Daily Show with Jon Stewart) has taken the ideas of traditional news and entertainment and created a combination of the two. I found the class discussion on the key elements of The Daily Show and about fake news quite interesting, seeing as ‘fake news’ tends to have an association with unreliable and non-valuable news yet Jon Stewart had referred to himself and The Daily Show as ‘fake news’.
The most exciting part of the class, however, was when we finally left the classroom and actually headed to the TV studios!! As we’re only at the beginning of the semester Ruth introduced to Studio C, one of the smaller RMIT TV studios. As a class, we were introduced to the basic rules and things to know about using the studio and were then broken into our groups to be shown how to use the equipment in the studio itself and control room. We were lucky enough to have one of the tech’s from the studios as well as Ruth and a friend of hers showing us how to use each of the equipment, their explanations each being relatively easy for a first year like me to understand. I personally found it to be a lot of information at once but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I know with time I will become more confident in the studio by using the equipment and working in different roles.
It was an eye-opening experience entering the studios for the first time as Ruth explained to us that the studios were very similar to those of real TV studios. Being shown how to use all the control room equipment too may confuse me for now, but as I previously said, with time I feel as though I’ll become much more comfortable in my work in the studios and I’m definitely excited to learn new skills and abilities.
Overall, week 3’s class was one of the best I’ve had as it really opened me up to the studios I can utilise throughout the degree and for the next few months through this studio and I’m excited to work alongside my peers over the coming weeks and work together to develop our skills and create projects we’re proud of.