Select one of the three speeches from the Story 7 assignment. Pretend that you are a journalist covering the speech at the time it occurs. By some technological miracle of the mid-20th century, you have gained access to the internet and Twitter.
First, write a setup tweet that would be sent shortly before the speech starts, telling who’s going to be speaking about what topic. As you listen to the speech, write at least 10 live tweets describing or quoting newsworthy statements as they occur. After the speech, write a final tweet as if you had written a story and were trying to lure readers to your story on the internet. That’s a total of 12 tweets.
Now, you will not be writing real tweets. Do not put them on Twitter. (After all, we don’t want anybody to think that there is an imminent threat of nuclear war or that the Vietnam War is still going on.)
The body of each tweet must contain:
100 to 225 characters (our 225-character limit leaves space for someone to comment or retweet without exceeding Twitter’s 280-character limit)
No wasted words (even though you have 225 characters available, you want to pack as much information into as few words as possible to make your tweet readable and effective)
The Twitter handle of your fictitious news organization, @troynews
A hashtag about the event, such as #JFKspeech
Most important, a news bulletin (a summary of the most recent important news from the speech). Each tweet must contain attribution: It must be clear that the factual assertion or comment came from the speaker. One efficient way to achieve attribution might be by combining it with the hashtag if the hashtag is appropriately worded. See the first example below.
Your 12th tweet should essentially contain the lede of your hypothetical story — the most important news from the speech. And the 12th tweet must include a hypothetical link to your finished story. (You are not required to write the story.)
Finally, at the bottom of each tweet, put its character count. Microsoft Word can count characters for you, using its “word count” feature.
Examples
Your setup tweet might look like this:
President Kennedy will speak from Oval Office about Soviet missiles in Cuba; follow it here #JFKspeech @troynews
112 characters
One of your 10 live tweets might look like this:
#JFKspeech: Soviet Union has offensive missile sites in Cuba capable of nuclear strikes in Western Hemisphere @troynews
119 characters
Your final tweet might look like this:
JFK confronts USSR on nuclear missile sites in Cuba #JFKspeech @troynews http://troynews.com/JFK-USSR.htm
105 characters
(Don’t use my wording for your own tweets.)
From the three historical speeches below, choose one from for this assignment. One is from President John F. Kennedy. The second is from General Douglas MacArthur. The third is from President Richard Nixon. These speeches are approximately 30 minutes long.
You will choose one of these speeches to listen to as if you were a reporter covering that speech. After listening to the entire speech, you will write a news story about the speech. First, you need some background information about our speakers and the time frames these speeches were delivered.
You are writing a news story as if you were covering that speech as it happened today.
Select one of the following speeches for this assignment:
President John F. Kennedy
The speech you are about to listen to was delivered on Oct. 22, 1962, on a national television broadcast from the Oval Office. President Kennedy requested time on all three national TV networks. The networks provided this time for his speech. (This was a time before cable TV. The networks were ABC, CBS and NBC. This was also a time before satellite communications, meaning that radio and television signals had to be distributed via microwave and special AT&T phone connections.)
Historians say that the world was never as close to a nuclear war as it was on that day.
Fidel Castro was in power in Cuba. He was one of the primary leaders of the Cuban revolution and seized power in 1959 when his followers ousted Fulgencio Batista. Later that year, Castro consolidated his power and told the world that Cuba had transitioned into a communist nation. Americans were expelled from the island, and American businesses were nationalized without compensation.
This was also the start of Cubans fleeing their homes and moving to Miami. At the same time, thousands of moderates, teachers and professors were killed or tortured in inhuman prisons.
President Dwight Eisenhower broke off diplomatic relations with Cuba on Jan. 3, 1961, days before John F. Kennedy was sworn in as president.
On April 17, 1961, 1,400 CIA-trained Cuban exiles landed at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba. The plan was for these troops to secure the beach, then launch an attack that would take over control of the island and overthrow Castro.
Plans for the invasion were leaked to Castro, and his military was waiting on the beach and quickly overpowered the exiles. This attack was a huge embarrassment to the Kennedy administration.
Tensions between the United States and Cuba continued to escalate during 1961 and 1962. On Oct. 15, 1962, a U.S. spy plane flying over Cuba discovered the construction of missile installations on Cuban soil.
These missile installations were seen by American military leaders as bases for Soviet nuclear weapons a mere 90 miles south of Key West, Florida. (The Soviet Union was often at odds with U.S. policy during this time.)
These missiles would greatly change the balance of military power at that time. America’s response time would drop from minutes for a missile being launched from the Soviet Union to seconds for a missile being launched from Cuba.
In this speech, the president is informing the American public that reconnaissance discovered these missiles and outlined America’s response to this growing crisis.
Click here to hear President John F. Kennedy’s address to the nation about the Cuban Missile Crisis.
