Story Drops the Baton

Some local stations are covering a story about some baton twirlers who got in trouble for doing a routine to the Katy Perry "I Kissed a Girl" song. Perhaps you've heard it. I hope so, because if you were watching one particular station, you would not have heard the song in the piece. How is this possible? How can you do a story on a song getting students in trouble without actually playing the song? The story would not make a lot of sense to someone who hasn't heard the song (and I'm guessing that's a large part of your viewing population over a certain age). How can a viewer decide for themselves whether the song is offensive for a high school pep rally unless they hear it?

If you're having a trouble locating the song, it's all over You Tube. You could have one of the students you interview at their computer playing the video. I can hear the line already... "It's got a catchy tune but this song caused one student to catch a lot of flak from school administrators..."

If you're worried about using a song in a package, contact your management or your station's attorney. If for some reason you feel compelled NOT to use the song, at the very least, put up a full screen of lyrics with a line like... "What's all the fuss about? Here's a sampling of the lyrics:
I kissed a girl and I liked it
The taste of her cherry chapstick
I kissed a girl just to try it
I hope my boyfriend don't mind it."
This gives someone who's never heard the song a much better sense of it.

Another thing. The story DID have home video of the routine. They didn't let it go Nats full, so I'm guessing there wasn't any Nats on the tape? It's a good idea to clue viewers in on this, because the first thing you think when seeing the tape is... I want to hear it. It could be as easy as saying... "There's no sound on the tape... but you can see the girls performing the routine the night they got in trouble."(( An aside: Or again, you could have your interview looking at the tape "Yeah, that was our routine. We practiced it for weeks. We never thought we'd get in trouble..." Or whatever.)) The point is, if there's an obvious defect in a material (like no audio) you might want to mention it in the script. And if there was audio... why not pull it full?