Pediatricians Pressured To Drop Parents Who Won't Vaccinate - Assignment #1

In wake of the recent measles outbreak in Disneyworld, vaccinations have been a big talking point in the media, my story is one of doctors in California refusing to see children who haven’t been fully vaccinated. The story is Pediatricians Pressured To Drop Parents Who Won’t Vaccinate by Patti Neighmond of NPR. The story contains a print element of a summarized audio for radio, and a comments section at the bottom of the page, along with links to share the story on various social networks.

The audio is a better choice for this story because there is nothing that the audience needs to see in this story, the story is being told and there is no action that would be desired to be seen on television. This story adapted for television would consist of mainly b-roll footage of the waiting room of a doctor’s office with a few shots of interview footage. The print media is an abbreviation of the audio, not a word for word transcription which makes it more entertaining to read, with one picture of one of the two doctors interviewed in the audio piece, Dr. Eric Ball. The important quotes from the subjects of the story are included in the print text. There is also a comments section that contains intelligent and relevant conversation in relation to the story. The social media share buttons are also of importance in this case, because this is how I found the story, on social media.

For the most part, the media coverage was well done and I have nothing terrible to change. I would either add a few more pictures of the subjects of the story as opposed to the one of a doctor performing a check up on a patient. The radio segment is well put together and I wouldn’t make any changes there. The comments sections is well written out and for the most part civil which is a change from many other sites that offer commenting on their stories and assorted posts.

While I may not usually go to NPR for news, I chose this story because I found it on social media, which I thought was important when analysing the effectiveness of multimedia when producing a story for a vast audience. The story was about a topic I cared about in great amount, and I was also biased as my personal beliefs fell in line with the subject in question, that is, doctors refusing patients that aren’t vaccinated.

Story: http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2015/02/04/383796532/pediatricians-pressured-to-drop-parents-who-wont-vaccinate