For the third consecutive week, we had a high attendance rate, except for a few colleagues who were unable to come for health reasons. Those who couldn't attend have already sent emails asking to be updated on the content and pitching the stories that were asked in class.
A total of 16 students attended the third class of the Mural course, which, in my humble opinion, was probably the most fun so far.
The day began as usual, with the discussion on how the day's newspapers were portraying outlying communities in their news, if they were at all. As usual, once again, we saw that the coverage by the mainstream media devoted to peripheral areas of São Paulo was far from fabulous.
We also started editing the video that the students began shooting on the previous week.
The task, which had been performed on our second lesson, on June 27th, consisted of showing the day to the day of the local trade in the region where the course is being held, the headquarters of the Folha de Sao Paulo, in the neighborhood of Campos Elíseos, in central region of Sao Paulo.
Lecture
Still in the morning, we had an excellent lecture by journalist Andrew Caramante, a reporter specilazied in covering public security, for Folha de São Paulo's "Cotidiano" section, that deals with news related to the city of São Paulo mainly.
Like many students of the Mural coursel, André had to overcome economic difficulties to enter university. And thanks to his effort and talent, he's now one of the most prominent names in the biggest newspaper in the country.
His message was that, with persistence, dedication and discipline, others who did not come from affluent means and didn't have the chance to attend the best schools, could also find their ways into the mainstream press.
Unfortunately, we do not have pictures of a André's speech. The conversation was not recorded at his own request, due to the high danger of some of the issues he has covered, such as cases of corruption involving security agencies and police involvement in killings and death squads.
Pitching stories
We ended the day discussing the stories that each student pitched and the suggestions for other possible aproaches.
One option was to use as the main source for a story a public institution that was designated to each one in a an exercise that comprised of filling in a collaborative google docs spreadsheet with information on different public institutions that acted in peripheral areas.
The second choice was to create a news item based on a social topic some how related to the coming October elections and to the specific borough of each student, be it the overloaded technical school, the polluted streams of a crowded area or the chronic water shortages in another region.
Some would shoot videos and produce news stories, others would concentrate on video, some would focus solemnly on text. But each story should be illustrated at least with photographs.
On video, the emphasis was for, once again, to seek something short and simple, with no more than two minutes or two and a half minutes of footage: a single interview, some footage of the environment portrayed in the story and something that required only the most very basic cuts.
Judging from what the pupils have already presented in the initial exercises, I trust that their stories will be quite exciting. Since this Friday we have a local holiday, they have this weekend and the following week to work on their topics. We'll reconvene on the following weekend.
We're keeping in touch via the google mail that we created and via the Mural blog, where I post a summary of most of the tasks and they can add the stories that they're pitching, any possible doubts that they might have and ways to overcome them.