What If There Was No News? What’s News?

Join us on May 27, 2009 in real or virtual time (connection information to follow later) as students in Jennifer Brinson’s Advance Placement United States History and RJ Stangherlin’s Honors English 11 classes present factual and counterfactual history that examines the presence and absence of news in daily life. This year’s venue is an interactive video documentary that is intersected at different points with a live stage presentation. Time periods span the 1920 through the aftermath of 9-11.

The following video was created by each team and edited by Meagan Walsh.

What If There Was No News? What’s News? from RJ Stangherlin on Vimeo.

Our first team, An Era on Air: Brandon Aversano, Chloe Frick, Olga Karounos, Erin Lobach, Dennis Peterson, Meagan Walsh
An Era on Air examines the influence of significant news events from 1920-1933, while capturing the spirit and liveliness of the period. By deconstructing the era and eliminating the presence of news, An Era on Air portrays the time period through the juxtapositon of life with and without media.

Our second team, Uncovering Cover-Ups: Nadia Daher, Laudi El-Kareh, Hayley Joseph, Kelsey Molseed, Andrew Samy
In the words of Former President Richard M. Nixon, “The American people don’t believe anything until they see it on television.” Is this the only way to Uncover Cover-Ups?

Our third team, Generation X: Peter Cialkowski, Sky McCarty, My Phan, Fatema Rajmohamed, Hannah Rucker, Courtney Weiss
Generation X explores the eighties and travels through the decade explaining military concepts like the Soviet-Afghan War, social aspects like the outbreak of AIDS, and economic disasters like the one that took place on Black Monday.

Our final team, Broadcasting Terror: Matt Eherts, Sarah Gracely, Josh Gregory, William Kennington, Brandon Lansing, Shanon Safi
Love & Hate; Pride & Shame; Peace & War, co-existing with one another in the heart of one nation. Terrorists brought the terror but the media did the broadcasting. Now imagine what would happen if there was no news.