1. For my assignment I have been given the task of writing too essays on two different types of news
stories. I have chosen to do a serious and sensational and invasion of privacy story. To start of I
have chosen to talk about the serious and sensational story.
In early October a 4 year old blonde Romanian girl was found living in a Gypsy site with a male and
female. The 4 year old had bright blonde hair and green eyes which were very different from the
man and women’s eyes and hair she was living with. The female and male where very dark in skin
and both possessed brown/black hair and brown eyes. This then trigged the police and local
authorities to believe that this child had been stolen from her real parents. Overnight this story
became a sensation throughout Europe in hope that people would know who her real parents were.
This therefore made the story a priorityand became breaking news all over Europe appearing all
over each and every newspaper and being on the front cover of the newspapers for at least a week.
The story also made gypsy camps a story of priority triggering people to be careful of gypsy camps
but to also trigger the police to look around Gypsy camps for more stolen or kidnapped children.
The immediacy of the story was very important due to the fact the police wanted to know who the 4
year olds parents were straight away to return her to them. Due to the immediacy of the story other
famous missing children cases arised and gave the families hope. For example Madeline McCann’s
parents were also given an interview to show that they have been given hope about finding their
daughter. Other parents of missing children were also interviewed and quoted as saying they also
have new hope of finding their child. This therefore gave the story more publicity amongst people in
Europe.
The Madeline McCann story was also the main follow up story to the case once again triggering
people to call in and give information about this young girl if they knew where she was. People then
began to think and assume that Madeline McCann could be in a gypsy camp somewhere and
therefore gave her mum and dad hope of finding her somewhere.
It was also on the TV and on the radio which both required audio clips from news reporters at the
scene of the crime. Newspapers, radio and T V all featured quotes from insiders who knew what was
going on with the situation. These are all good examples of availability of audio which are all key
items when doing a breaking news story. Many quotes where gathered throughout the news story
such as ‘They told us they didn’t give her any money, and that they met by accident,' which was
required from an inside source who lived on the gypsy site.
The story was to the human interest very much so due to the fact many other people are affected
by their children going missing therefore this could give them hope in order of them finding their
children. People are also generally interested in stories like this due to the fact it’s a very inhuman
thing to do, kidnapping a child and therefore can also trigger people’s emotions. It is also of human
interest due to the fact police offers around the world will also want to be involved and help solve
the case.