The reading for this week by Sophia McClennen was quite interesting as I learnt and discovered more about what is involved in comedy news and what it takes to make comedy news successful. I really took on board what Sophia wrote about the ability to have an audience or to let the audience critically reflect the “professional opinions” of the sources of a news story by using satire, parody and pedagogy. In between last weeks class and this weeks class we had to have completed Project Brief 1. Therefore I wrote an analysis about the story of Taxi drivers who are falling asleep at the wheel, whilst they are driving. Of course this news story is very serious and there are many dangerous elements to it. However after reading the reading for this week, I did think how easy it could be to make a parody surrounding the sources in this Taxi news story, such as the head of the Taxi Service Commission who states that Taxi drivers falling asleep whilst working is very dangerous but there is nothing they can do about it…Therefore I thought this is the type of news story that could turn into a comedy news story to get the audience critically reflecting and arguing with the points these professional sources make.

During the elective workshop week 2, I got placed into group A who are a lovely bunch of people who I am excited to work with this semester. We were the first group to have a go at running a little practice news skit in studio A, I put my hand up to be the floor manager, which was actually a lot more fun and simple than I thought it was going to be. I needed to listen at all times to the director in the panel room through my headset, and if need be press a button to talk back to the director. I basically sent messages from the director to the ‘performers’ on stage or on set. We then as a group discussed the topic being ‘tough on crime’ and the types of ways to go about researching the issue. We currently have a google doc that we as a group are gradually pasting links to sites in and other information from our research.