in god we fuss

It’s a done deal.

With some fanfare and much confusion, the Kern High School District board of trustees finally voted to post a medley of our founding documents including the constitution, bill of rights, declaration of independence and our old and new mottos: "e pluribus unum and in god we trust."

So, how does a newspaper go about covering these stories with video, more often than not, on deadline?

Last night, the vote was finally held.

This entire saga started out when a pastor on the board brought up the idea to post the national motto on a poster with an American flag behind it. Needless to say, folks came out of the woods to debate the proposal. We called the first salvo, "in god we fuss."

Then there was a public forum/debate of sorts that one of our AMEs participated in.

And then last night…

Setting aside the political chicanery, dubious arguments, hair rending and gnashing of teeth, the pictures of democracy in action emerged. It is messy, and unless leaders work very diligently and hard to moderate the proceedings, both sides can emerge feeling bruised.

Shooting on tape slowed us down on the second night. We used out point and shoot Casios on the first and third nights, and supplemented all three with stills. Used Windowsmoviemaker for 1st and 3rd and Final Cut Pro for the second. We also learned NOT to let our writers use the camera/files to get their quotes until AFTER we pulled the files into our editing programs (cuts down on time.)

As always, your feedback and thoughts are welcome.

Links to stories…

Story #1

Story #2