4th October - Dummy Winol Week

The term has now started and we start this week of WINOL with new team members with the addition of around 25 2nd year students. It will be good to have all these new faces to help out with the tasks that WINOL demands especially on the sports side as it means we will be able to delegate sports reporters to all new sports all over Winchester and improve the sports side of WINOL no end! I will update this post later, when i have more news on what our side of the bulletin is going to contain!

WINOL's Election Coverage Show

On the 6th May, the team at WINOL hosted their very own Election Coverage show which went live from 10pm until 6 am the following day. The show, in a word, was a success.

The team put in a tremendous amount of work making packages for the show in the weeks prior to the election date in order to give the show more substance. All the packages centred around politics and many were interviews with electorate hopefuls although a few were more economical pieces on topics such as fair trade, recycling, the carbon foot print etc.

Josh, Joey and I headed to Romsey to create a package about the constituency and managed to get a few vox pops from the public about the upcoming election as well as an interview with the Liberal Democrat electorate hopeful, Sandra Gidley.

Unfortunately for us, the day started poorly, because when we got to Romsey, we discovered the ever tremendous loan counter had failed to put the camera we had hired out on charge, and the battery was flat. So being the opportunists us students are, we headed straight to the pub..... but with a legitimate reason of using the pubs electricity socket to charge the camera in exchange for a nice cold pint of coke.

Once the camera was charged, we headed out into the town getting as many general views, and vox pops as we could but the people of Romsey weren't too keen on appearing in front of the camera so we had to work had to get our footage. We then struck lucky, when we went to the town hall and we were told that the Liberal Democrat candidate for Romsey was just arriving in town, so we rushed down to the address we were given and Sandra Gidley herself kindly gave an interview for us. We were initially worried about the sound, as it was a particularly windy day and the sound levels were through the roof as the wind attacked the gun mic!

Fortunately for us, when editing, we managed to drop the sound level completely and the interview was saved. We cut the package to a minute and a half and submitted it to the editors. Next stop, Election Night!

Having been preparing all day, by increasing our knowledge on the political parties we would be covering, in my case, The Liberals, we headed into the studio dressed smartly at approximately 8pm. We prepared up to date scripts for the top of each hour giving our audience a round up of how each political party was fairing, paying particular attention to the regions close to us in Winchester. The newsroom was hectic and people were rushing about in order to get everything to run smoothly, but overall everyone enjoyed it, and the highlight of the night was when at 5:30am the majority of the team had gathered into the studio for the final result coming in from Winchester, and we all celebrated at the end of the show when we learnt that Steve Brine the local conservative MP had been elected.

During the debrief, although we were tired, there was a sense of pride and satisfaction amongst us all, as we knew we had put on a great show. Our traffic was through the roof compared to our average bulletins and we had even managed to break some results to our audience before the BBC with thanks to your reporters out in the field at various constituencies across the UK.

Overall, the Election Coverage Show was extremely successful, the quality of the show was outstanding for student work, and given the current state of our government, one would not rule out another election sooner rather than later, and if that happens the WINOL team will be ready and waiting to put on another show!

Vote Correctly, Vote CONSERVATIVE

I thoroughly enjoyed watching the first political debate on TV last week, and am already itching to see the next one this thursday, however, i was left wanting more, especially from the Conservatives who i felt didn't have a particularly strong debate, as Cameron was kind of overshadowed by the ever moody petulance from Brown, and the almost warming figure of Nick Clegg.

However, unlike many others, i have not been caught up in all the fuss surrounding Clegg, and have been shocked to here so many people saying, "Oh i'l vote for him, he's the best".

It was one debate, and the fact of the matter is, if a selection of people base their views on that solitary debate that they shall vote for him, it would be a catastrophe because as David Cameron warned, because of the current structure of the government, voting for Lib Dem's would almost certainly result in Brown becoming re-elected, which would be nothing short of a disaster.

The latest YouGov poll for the Sun, carried out on Saturday and Sunday, suggests the Lib Dems are 1% ahead of the Tories on 33% with Labour in third place on 26% - which if repeated on 6 May would result in a hung Parliament. This would be a disaster, and we as intelligent journalism students, must do the right thing, VOTE CONSERVATIVE.

WINOL WEEK 7

The last WINOL production of the term, and this week, i took on another new role, this time i became part of the camera crew. The stories (as ever!!) didn't leave us with much time to have a practice run through and as that 3pm deadline drew closer and closer my nerves were at an all time high.

Thankfully with the help of Joey and Josh up in the studio gallery, they were able to calmly and collectively guide us cameramen through the process as the bulletin went out live and on time despite a few technical problems to begin with and the small issue of us running out of time, which cut the live interview from Austria short, which was a shame, as i thought it was an incredibly clever use of our technology and would have excited our viewers.

I look forward to next term where i have a new role as a news reporter and will be working hard to get stories that will interest our viewers, increase our traffic, and make WINOL better overall.

Until then, Happy Easter

WINOL Week 6 Debrief Notes

Road Closure: Good, strong images, something happening, good shots of the bridge
Maps looked very professional, lined up the interview with bursar well,
Didn’t lower the sound on a cut-away, lost a sentence. Out line was a bit
Strange, never use ‘Remains to be seen’.

OOV: Libel to show the man, positive identification. Run it longer or leave it out
Completely, it is not factual that he is a thief

Union: Voice over and scripting was very good, no comment and all factual.
Trying to frame to fit in a poster.

Mice: Good piece, no shots of signs allowed! ‘But at what cost?’ No suspense.
Introduced Councillor with the statement was poor, use a tag line.
Tree was coming out of Claire’s head.

Slob: Brian did not understand it, wasn’t very well explained. Not relevant to
Winchester. Liked the PTC at the start, good moving shot worked very well.

SPORT

Carry cheers underneath a picture edit, run it longer, and then fade it down.
Good presentation from James.

WINOL Week 5 Debriefing

WINOL WEEK 5 DEBRIEF:

Reading suggestion from Chris : On bureaucracy – Max Vaber

Opening shots – too many views of campus, get different/alternative shots
Don’t use the word alleged old fashioned and opens you to being sued, the word vandalism is LIBEL, had to be removed.

The Council Statement – punctuality – council IS not are, always correct grammar unless you’re intentionally showing them up

Park and ride story – good expo – use of the word “claimed” is strong. Interviews good, but try to get more damning quotes.

Officers in schools – slightly biased piece, rule on identifying people,

Email story – classically written introduction, who what where when why,

Sport -

Bulletin overall was okay, not on time, takes a hit on traffic which is not good. Content and detail was strong, presentation was good and only a few technical glitches.

The Dangers of Facebook

We all have a facebook page. We are all stupidly addicted to it and use it far too often,however, today the more sinister and dangerous side of social networking was revealed.

Peter Chapman, who has a history of violent sex assaults and is a convicted sex offender, befriended 17-year-old Ashleigh Hall by posing as a teenage boy on Facebook. Chapman falsely lured Ashleigh into a meeting back in October, and days after her body was discovered. Ashleigh had been strangled and dumped in a farmer's field near Sedgefield.

Chapman, 33, pleaded guilty to the charges at Teesside Crown Court. He also admitted failing to notify police of a change of address, as required by the sex offenders register.

This story is a stark reminder to us as the internet generation to be more careful when we are online and to only accept and converse with people who we know and trust.

WINOL Week 4 Debrief

Here are the debrief notes for the past week's bulletin :

Job Loss Story: Joeys opening line – repetition okay as long as its not too noticeable. Opposition – always going to give a good interview or “slam” opposition. Good shot, nice background view, well framed, noise issue with the water though. Should have asked more obvious questions to get more quotes.

The graphic quote was too weak. Good framing of the noddy’s, becareful on the eye line to make sure the noddy looks realistic and not fake. Make sure both interviews are of similar time so not to show bias.

Simulator/Trading story : Technically brilliant, slight editorial problem in the fact that its too positive, maybe in the sign off put some sort of spin on the article eg “it remains to be seen if the simulator will be a success….” Needed a stronger finish

Big Tidy Up – good shots again, balanced story, Joy Carter liked story because although it was negative it was truthful.

Fairtrade story – facts are in Kayleigh’s voice, exposition, would be better if it came from a real source, or a piece to camera would be stronger.

Sport – stumble over words in opening, relax and pretend you have more time. Re-shoot it. Strong piece to camera, not too bad footage , trying to emphasise the amount of people there, tighten the shot to give a more crowded effect. Try to get tighter to action, maybe cut aways to the crowd to get emotions on footage. Well read over the footage.

The and finally was not as strong and quick as hoped.

Bulger Killer's In Trouble Again

In the past week it emerged that one of James Bulger's killers has been re-arrested after breaching the rules on his release license in 2001. The public seem to have extremely strong views on whether the details of this re-arrest should be published and Jon Venables's new identity revealed.

The murder of the young and innocent James Bulger is a sensitive topic, due to the age at which James was savagely beaten to death. Bulger was taken by two young thugs from his mother in the local town shopping centre and lead to a railway where he was subjected to a horrific beating and was left to die. Venables and Thompson became Britain's youngest murderers at the age of just ten years old.

The government has come under strong criticism from the public over their refusal to release the details of Venables's re-arrest. Justice Secretary Jack Straw has however agreed to meet James's Bulger's mother, Denise Fergus, after her calls on the government to tell her and the public what offences Venables is alleged to have committed.

Venables and James's other killer Robert Thompson were given new identities on their release from life sentences, controversially Mr Straw admitted that the details behind Venables being returned to prison were in the public interest, but said there was a risk of prejudicing any further criminal proceedings.

This is a very difficult subject but personally i feel the public should be informed because Venables has been let off light for the crime he committed and has shown his time inside hasn't taught him anything and he has broken the release rules and could be a danger to the public again as could Thompson and thus we as innocent members of the public have the right to know.

WINOL Week 3 Debriefing

Another week of WINOL....

Opening headlines and pictures didn’t match, however better overall introduction with music.

NEVER use someone’s name in headline – exceptions with celebrities, this allows for the audience to want to know more/read or listen on….

Get your interviewee talking, play dumb, let them do the speaking, but when they give you something juicy/good, stay quiet as it will provoke the interviewee to expand and say

Cutting room journalism - have a clear idea of what the story is, get your interview to say what you need for the piece. Where students go wrong is only knowing half the story, you need an angle before you start the piece.

Paedophile story – should have done a piece to camera, more effective, shot of building too long,

Issues of consent on filming of car parking forum, section 8 – performing a public duty

Don’t use words or phrases that don’t emphasise enough, make your verbs more dramatic, “selective quoting”

Hospital bug story – good introduction, basic yet informative. Good strong quote from doctor, however he should be saying it’s a nightmare not telling the story. “Big” problem , interviewer should prompt further questions. “Inevitable” – comment not fact.

Sound on the rugby manager interview - poor quality.

One woman band – no news at all, just a mini feature. Good cut away shots and filming.

Overall, a much better bulletin, people seem more confident, its far from perfect but 80% there and pretty good considering there is no budget and we are short staffed, but as ever, there is always room for improvement.

The traffic was up again, but we need to improve it further, date with fate may need to be brought back to bring traffic to the site.