Saturday, August 29, 2009

Saturday's Corner Protest with Janet

Three to four hundred Tea Party protesters came out to Highways K and N in OFallon, MO, to support Janet's Corner Protest August 29th, 2009. Thousands of cars honked as they passed the crowd and its free market and anti-Obamacare signs. (Video below...)

The stilts guy was back! I saw him it one of McCaskill's townhalls recently and at the 100 Days/Arnold Tea Party.

And there were new faces in the crowd—some guy and the devil. Checkout the enthusiasm on "some" guy's face.


Mike Garrity and his channel 5 news team interviewed Janet about her street corner protest. Mike's story is online available: KSDK 5 Report.

Video Coverage:

The first video is a walk along the side of the street when I arrived at 12:15 to get an estimate of the crowd.

The second video is of the channel 5 team interviewing Janet.

The third video is my interview with Janet. I think this is the best of the bunch, so I've put it below. If you only watch one video, this is the one!

The fourth video is the crowd at 1:45 as the event began to wind down.



I have a couple of thoughts about my video coverage compared with KSDK 5's. I think Mike conducted several good interviews and produced a balanced report of today's protest. The television format definitely boxed him in time-wise—I found myself wishing that more of his interview with Janet was included. In this regard, I think my interview with her is better; however, from a news perspective, Mike checked several boxes that I did not. He provided context including an explanation of the police presence and a couple of short interviews with folks stopping at the nearby gas station who, unlike the protesters, support the healthcare legislation.

The St Louis Tea Party video team strives to accurately report news at tea party events, but we're still not doing that well. We're learning and we're growing (I met a couple more bloggers and videographers Saturday), but we need to remember to get opposing views.

Related:
Previously:

1 comment:

Bob McCarty Writes said...

Darin -- In the first video above, you wondered about the number of cars that pass through the intersection of Highways K and N in O'Fallon, MO. this link shows that the intersection handles about 39,000 vehicles per day.