DeKalb Protest
Posted by live apt fire on January 30, 2009
The facts:
Atlanta city councilman Derek Boazman was arrested during the protest. State Senator Douglas Dean (D-Atlanta) was also arrested. Dean is the guy asked by the cop if he has a gun. Both were charged with interfering with a government meeting.
Both men were released from jail on a signature bond.
The arrests happened during a meeting of the DeKalb Co. planning commission in Decatur.
DeKalb and Fulton Counties provide government money to fund Grady Hospital.
The old white guy getting interviewed is Bobby Burgess, DeKalb Police Chief.
From the Atlanta city council minutes, July 6 1999. FYI:
Councilmember Boazman remarked that a February 14, 2000 trial date had been scheduled at the Dekalb County Recorder’s Court at 8:30 a.m., as a result of his May, 1999 arrest for interfering with a government meeting while protesting, along with a coalition of other individuals, of Grady Memorial Hospital’s budget cuts by the Fulton/Dekalb County Hospital Authority. Mr. Boazman remarked that although the coalition was not able to get the charges dropped, its efforts did result in $1.1 million being added to Grady’s budget to increase funding for medicine for the indigent.
Your job: Write this package as a current TV news story. The length should be from :60 to 1:30. Script natural sound by using a word or two to describe it, and indicate the time code. Script soundbites more or less verbatim with time codes. Make sure that the first four words and the last four words of the soundbites, and the time codes, are correct. It’s ok to paraphrase what’s in the middle.
Additionally: Write a brief anchor lead-in to the piece. “The downtown connector shut down cold for more than an hour today, and you won’t believe why. Mike Daly reports on the cause, and the roundup of the culprits.”
Tips: Avoid “today,” “this morning,” etc.
Just because it’s in the city council minutes doesn’t necessarily mean it belongs in your story. Note that the council minutes were published two months after the arrests.
You may assume that you have basic file video available of Grady Hospital, as well as the DeKalb Planning Commission.
How do you time it? Read it out loud. Pause for the estimated lengths of the natural sound hits. Read the soundbites verbatim.
This is due at noon, January 4. Send the script to apartmentfire [ at ] gmail [ dot ] com.
