Anatomy of a News Story is a short documentary Ken Kobré made expressly for this book. He follows a solo TV videojournalist on an assignment (to discover a surprise ending). The solo pro on assignment translates theory to practice.
Da Lin, the videojournalist in the piece, is a well-known, hard-hitting, and imaginative one-man-band TV reporter for KPIX 5 San Francisco. The 15-minute documentary traces how one person doing it all covers a news story on deadline. Da Lin gave the producer complete access to follow him on one day’s assignment and explained every step of his process.
Da Lin’s story that day was about a missing person. The assignment seemed routine when the day started. However, a real mystery—possibly a murder—was unveiled.
I hope those watching “Anatomy of a News Story” can observe and absorb some of the methods deployed by an award-winning multimedia journalist to cover a breaking story on a one-day-turn-around deadline.