I watched the news video titled, "Sleep is the new Sex." Ok, ok, ok...so I was completely caught by the somewhat outrageous title. I wasn't expecting a very good story, but I decided to watch anyway-I had to know how they justified their headline. The video was laden with catchy music (that had something to do with sleep) that I recognized. I know of a certain teacher who doesn't like it...but I'll have to say, it made me want to watch (I like the song). Matt Lauer was the one conducting the interview-come to find out, the whole story was based on chronic insomnia and sleeping pills. I have no problem being honest, if the headline would have read, "America's Sleep Problem" or "Chronic Insomniacs"-I wouldn't have even noticed it.
I've noticed Lauer seems to get a lot of grief from people about not being a real "journalist," but in this story, I think he displayed great interview skills. The video opened with a casual interview with a doctor to describe what chronic insomnia was, had a feature story on a woman suffering from chronic insomnia, and then ended with Lauer and the doctor again. It was 7:29 long, but I was never bored. My critiques revolve around actual video quality-the screen was little and I couldn't figure out how to enlarge it. The shots that would be fading in and out on a normal TV were extremely gritty on the computer-this really got on my nerves. Some of the volumes of the commercials they showed about sleeping pills were too loud-almost completely drowned out the doctor who was speaking; this could just have been on the Internet version. Also, there was no way for me to send the web address to my friends (or post it in this blog). I would just have to tell you, go to msnbc.com, it's under NBC News Highlights: Today Video: Is sleep the new sex? And the main web page at msnbc is a little messy-kinda hard to find things. HOWEVER, overall, I was impressed by the story; I learned something.
If it were a text story, it would be boring. There is no other way to put it. I wouldn't hear that song in the beginning I really like. I wouldn't have seen the sleep pill commercials and been able to put the two together (No, "OOOH, that is what that medicine is for). My stereotype of a chronic insomniac before this video was someone who was slightly off or paranoid. The feature story was about a woman who was married, with one child, and a job. You could put that in text, but I still would have an image of what I thought she looked like (which is not the pretty normal blonde that was actually in the story). I wouldn't have stuck around to read the end either- I would have read the lead and determined that I was no longer interested.
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