Listening Journal #2: International News

Title: BBC World service (Time 2:30 am)

Producer: BBC

Length: 4:59

(ostrich egg fragments could represent earliest forms of written communication)

The BBC newscast included stories about:

1- Ethiopian aid money used by repels to buy guns. (reporter included)

2- Son of a founding member of Hamas said he worked as a spy for Israel. (reporter included)

3- Chile’s earthquake. (reporter included, but the sound quality is bad)

4- Chief of Guatemala’s national police was arrested in a case involving stolen cocaine and slain police.

5- HIV as the leading cause of death among women of reproductive age worldwide. (reporter included)

6- German prosecutors have opened investigations into allegations of sexual abuse at two Roman Catholic schools by four different monks.

7- Scientists say they found signs of one of the early forms of human written communication in South Africa.

The newscast was interesting and captured my attention. The stories were really interesting.

The quality of sound was good, and the announcer’s voice was great. Nat sound was used in the Chile earthquake story and it enriched the story, as sirens are cars moving can be heard with the reporter’s voice.

The newscast’s length was okay and it wasn’t boring. BBC’s website was really interesting as it has a feature where you can drag and replace news boxes. For example, you can put Sports or weather at the top or change the order of news sections on the website.