Winol Week 5: Two stories, twenty two takes and two wires that I am now in fear of

Week 5 and it feels like I have starting to feel that I am acclimatised myself to my role of Political Correspondent on Winchester News Online. After last week's baptism of fire, I felt that I needed to redeem myself from my story from last week, which was poor by my high standards. 

On Monday we had a different type of debrief where Chris Horrie reviewed WINOL as a whole including What's On, Sportsweek, Radio and the WINOL website as a whole. Not many relevant points came out of the debrief from a news aspect, but we were told about the aspect of fair dealing, which allows you to use a few seconds of footage from a copyrighted piece of footage for the purpose of reviewing or commenting on. 

We then were sent to call our contacts in order to have a story ready for the news meeting at half 2. I went into the meeting with a story I had found that Hampshire County Council were planning to implement video technology into their council meetings to promote transparency between the council and Hampshire residents, but at a cost of nearly £250,000. 

I had got in contact with Unison Hampshire and arranged to interview the Branch Secretary, Tim Cutter with the angle of showing if this equipment was a waste of taxpayers money during the current economic climate of cuts in both jobs and public services. I was given the task of putting together another story in regards to the announcement by UCAS in the falling number of university applications this year. 

From past experience this year, I knew that this would be a hard task to pull on by Wednesday morning, but I was confident and went on to interview Tim Cutter and was able to gain what I thought was a couple of good quotes. Tuesday morning I was able to meet up with Councillor Colin Davidovitz who is the cabinet member for communication at Hampshire County Council. After I finished my interview, I went into town and filmed my GV's ready to then focus attention on the university application story.

I got in contact with the four local universities in the area, but both universities in Southampton and Portsmouth University were unable to give me their application figures, as they had not yet been released. Therefore, I had to use the information on a national scale to focus the angle on my story, which had been decided to be an in-studio piece with help from a graphic. 

Thanks to Chris and Charlotte were able to create a graphic and a graph, which would help explain the extent of the problem and I was then able to pass my other story onto Flick and gave her the background behind the story and what was left to be finished. I decided it would be more helpful to capture the footage, but we then found that the interview with Councillor Davidovitz had technical and sound problems, which were not evident when I played the interview back through the camera. 

Thankfully, I was able to give Flick the statement I had received from Council Leader, Ken Thornber for her to use in a piece-to-camera in the morning. At the same time, The University of Winchester had got back in contact with me, which allowed me to make the story more relevant with a local angle, but with it being 2am on Wednesday morning this point, I decided to leave the news room and try and get some sleep to be ready for recording my in-studio piece in the morning. 

Wednesday morning came and it was decided that we would only use the graph in the in-studio piece and that the presenter would explain the first part of the story. The time then came for me to go in the studio to record my piece, ready for the bulletin. After a near-hour long constant struggle with sorting the wires out and with the help of five pieces of tape, I was ready to record my piece. After what felt that twenty takes, the piece was recorded, but what was clear is that I need to slow my pace down as sometimes my nerves take control and I will speak to quick, which will make harder for the viewer to understand what the story is about. 

A big thanks to both Angus who helped me relax and pace myself with the piece and to George and Dom for great direction helping me ensures I remained focused throughout. 

After editing the piece together, I handed it in and awaited this week's debrief after the bulletin at 3. After the bulletin had been played out, it was clear straight away I had made a fatal error. I had announced Tommy Geddes as the Vice Chancellor, not the Deputy Vice-Chancellor. Therefore I had not checked my facts 100% and if this has been live it could of been a major legal error and it was not the best thing when the real Vice-Chancellor, Joy Carter came in and witnessed this error during final rehearsal.

Other points that came out from the debrief including that the majority of the images this week were poor and did not tell the story. Brian mentioned that if you turn the sound down on the news, you should be able to tell the story from the pictures and this week's WINOL did not do this. Also, you best picture should be used at the beginning of your story and should keep the viewer engaged throughout.  

Broader points included the use of verb structure between the use of singular and plural verbs. It was also evident that this week the interviews were mainly dull and we were not filming with the story in mind or the quote we wanted. This has now been decided that no story will be used without balance and decent soundbite and without being seen by either Will or Becky to ensure everyone facts are right. 

From a personal standpoint, I think I did very well with the workload I had this week, but feel that I could of put more effort and time in with one story and could of made it better. My in-studio PTC was good, but I know that I need to relax and pace myself in order to get my point across, but also ensuring the viewer is able to understand. My biggest weakness is still keeping my eyes focusing down the camera at all times because there were a few small occurrences where my eyes wandering from focus.

This week has helped me appreciate how hard work does pay off, but the key thing now is to ensure that my non-verbal interaction is as polished and strong as my verbal interaction on camera and during this week's story. 

Winol Week 4..... It's the quality, not the quantity we are looking for!

This week at Winol has shown that the key to making a good news story is that ensure that it involves people doing something or being affected by something. This week started with the usual debrief of the previous week's edition and then came the lovely task of calling my contact in order to have a new story ready for the new meeting at half two.

I was able to use the story I had left about Barton Farm, but use a different angle that would see me show how Winchester City Council are struggling to create a housing strategy to build 4000 homes in Winchester in the next 20 years and to point out the need that local residents are asking for more affordable housing in the city. I was able to secure an interview with local Conservative councillor and member of Winchester Town Forum, Ian Tait who has supported the need for more affordable housing in the city.

I need to ensure that I had balance for my story, so I got in contact with the CPRE (Campaign to protect rural England) to try and secure an interviews about their views of protecting the countryside in and around Winchester. I finished Monday with interviewing Councillor Tait where I was able to gain a good few quotes that could be used in my story.

Tuesday was a busy one as I had to get into the Volkswagen Lupo, which has seen to have been renamed the WINOL mobile or the WINOL taxi service to pick Flick and Becky up and drop them to Marwell to film Flick's piece on Rhinos. I then returned to the news room and tried to get in contact with the CPRE who then passed me onto a member of the Save Barton Farm group who I hoped I could arrange an interview with.

In between trying to secure the interview, I had to drop Ali and Lee into Southampton for them to film Princess Anne who was opening the new police station at Southampton Central. After returning into Winchester I decided now was the perfect time to start filming, but before I could set off I had a phone call from Tom who asked if I could drop him into the outskirts of Winchester to help him film for his news story on rising energy prices.

Thankfully after last week it had proved that working with Tom helped as we were both able to help us film our shots for our stories and ensure that they were relevant to our pieces. After an afternoon of filming, I tried to secure my interview, but unfortunately the contact from the Save Barton Farm group was unwilling to be interviewed on camera and would only provide a statement.

I spent the majority of Tuesday evening watching Southampton beat West Ham to go five points clear at the top of The Championship (It is now only three points clear as of writing this blog, but we are top of the league COYR!!!). I got into Tab9 at around 11 and after a small argument with security who did not think I had applied to be allowed it overnight, I was able to use the combination of footage from this week's story and the failed Barton Farm piece to but together a good combination of shots into my package and then put the voice over underneath. I have been able to become more comfortable with editing with Final Cut Pro and decided to save the package and leave it till the morning and hopefully I could secure a last minute interview.

Wednesday morning was a nightmare as I called the CPRE one last time and they were unwilling to talk to me as they felt it was too early to make a statement on the matter and they felt the city council figures for housing may be changed. This left me with only being able to do a piece to camera explaining this in order to try and get some balance out of the story. After finishing my PTC, I went back into the news room and edited the final piece together and was happy that it was finished.

However, as we had no guest editor this week, Brian decided to take a more hands-on approach with our pieces and felt that my story was good, but it had was only telling a story from one view and that there was really no news relevance, due to the ongoing final decision to be made by the city council. It was decide to change my piece to a OOV-Act, which is where the presenter will explain the story over the images and then will follow with a interview.

After this was cut down, it was then a team effort and the news order was changed around five different times before 3pm and we had to ensure that all of the packages were in on time and to constantly check the news to see if their was any local, news worthy events that we could send someone out to film and edit in time to put into the bulletin. The pressure paid off as the bulletin was put out on time at three, but was very OOV heavy.

Debrief

Brian and Angus both felt that the main problem this week was the stories overall were not good enough to be used as a VT and were mostly changed to OOV's as they were not broadcast quality. It is key to ensure that a news story is about people doing something or something they are affected by, but this was not evident in many of the pieces.

The other problem is that we were holding the News Editor Becky to ransom as we did not supply enough back up stories to fill the news board as back-ups in case any of our stories fell through. Therefore, it was decided to we had to ensure that we come to the news meeting this Monday with at least 2 to 3 different stories.

It was also clear that we were not writing our script to the pictures and this is key to ensure there is a link interaction between the pictures and the viewer, who need to understand the story. Brian explained how it is key to write the script to the pictures. We also had the problem in the OOV's as the majority had no natural sound and it is better to have natural sound in the background as it make the story more real and will make it more interesting for the viewer, instead of only having the newsreader to explain the story without any sound.

This week was tough, but it was rewarding as it was the closest example to a real BBC or ITN newsroom than they had ever had in WINOL. Even though my piece was stripped from a VT to an OOV-Act, I fully understand that the story was relevant, but did not have the broadcast quality to be broadcasted as a full story.

I will ensure this week that I come to the news meeting with as many stories as possible and that I plan my story thoroughly to match the script to the pictures and tell a story that can be understood completely.

All I want to do is have sex and kill all of my fellow Journos- HCJ Lecture 2 and inside the mind of Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud is a man whose ideas tried to explain everything about the whole world.  Freud lived in Austria throughout most of his life, but moved to London in the last few years to escape the ever-growing reign of the Nazi's as even though he was an atheist, there was Jewish routes in his family and needed to escape the worst. Freud died in London on 23 September 1939 and was a worldwide celebrity, a cocaine addict and would be remembered most as being deeply ambitious.

Freud was seen as a sexual renegade as rejected the previous idea's of seeing human beings as noble creatures. His ideas would challenge and be a direct attack against the enlightenment and felt that humans were not rational in there thought processes. Instead he believed that at the centre of our thoughts is a deep pessimism. These ideas Freud felt you could think were similar to the compositions of Rembrandt as there is little light, but they are full of darkness and sinister motives. These visions were Freud's dark vision of humanity.

This reflects the true meaning behind Modernism, which is out with the old and in with the Freudian way of thinking. Freud's way of thinking was his theory of Pyschoanalysis and it can not be disputed that it's influence on modern society is staggering. We will come back to this theory later on, first we must get ready to rumble in tonight's boxing match between Sigmund Freud and Plato.



Freud followed Plato' ideas of a tripartite self. Plato felt our conscious and sub-concious thoughts were made up of reason, spirit and desire. Plato also believed that our reason could rule over any of our thoughts, but Freud thought that reasons was the weakest element of Plato's tripartite self as humans are irrational. Freud also disagreed that we are drive be desires that are outside of our mind and beyond our control.

Now that is a first round knockout for Sigmund Freud, but we have a new challenger coming into the HCJ rumble ring and that is the German Karl Marx. Marx again used the ideas of a tripartite self, but he felt that it's elements consisted of natural, alienated and species self. Freud again rejected this idea as it was simply too idealists and he felt that our deepest needs are agression. This is where Freud's theory of psychoanalysis takes hold as he feels that humans discover the truth about themselves when we are unconscious and we find out thing's we do not know about ourselves.

Freud see the reality of human nature as a combination of pain and suffering with the most painful act a human has to do is the day to day interacting with other human beings. This brings me to Freud's tripartite self and the three elements that makes up the Freudian Personality:

ID: The first part of the personality is made up of our animalistic nature aimed at maximising pleasure and minimising pain. This can be reflecting in our sexual lusts for other people and the aggression we wish to use on the rest of the world and reflects our dominant personality, but this is our unconscious thoughts.

Ego: This is the reality principle and least powerful part of the personality. It is our "voice of reason" and stops us doing the things that our ID wants use to do. It is the mediation between our dreams and reality and ensure our common-sense acts to stop any of our aggression from being released.

Super-Ego: The final part of the personality, which is the internalised rules of parents or society. It is the voice in your head, which is irrational. It will strive for perfection and will want to complete near-impossible tasks or accomplishments. This is the part of the personality, which is developed after we are born through our social interactions. This is the picture of our ideal self, which will strive for perfection, but punish us with guilt.

This is the picture of the personality, but the main problem with this is the conflict, which will divide within ourselves.

Freud believes that the pain we suffers throughout our lives can we described in three types:

1. Our own decaying body as we grow older our body is gradually wearing away.
2. The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, which is the bad luck we may suffer, which makes us feel rejected and worthless.
3. The great pain of all is the interaction we have with other people.

Freud explains how there are answers in the analysis of avoiding pain, but this iS not open to everyone as it is the masses who will continue on their ever destructive path. He also outlines that any form of copying mechanism is not recommended. These defence mechanisms include:

* Chemical Solution: Intoxication (getting drunk), however this release is only temporary and can result in either greater pain when you wake up.
* Isolation: Closing your door and isolating yourself from the outside world. Again this release is only temporary and Freud believed this would only work for a few people.
* Sublimation:: Finding socially acceptable realised for your aggression e.g. sport.

Freud felt that civilisation was acting as a collective supergroup in imposing moral limits and restrictions on our ID. This battle can turn into repression of our defence mechanisms and bring our most painful memories to the surface of our conscious.

These problems are related sublimation and the following others:

* Displacement: Turning shameful thoughts into something else
* Projections: Sending negatives thoughts and feelings onto someone else. E.G starting a fight on a Saturday night in Southampton.
* Rationalisation: Returning to an earlier stage of development (becoming a child again in a Fetal position for comfort)

Freud found that the key to psychoanalysis is that people will find something from someone and that there is a way to find out and deal directly what the problem is with a person through their ID. This is through hypnosis, which is a pressure method associated with dreams. The method is aimed at putting the ego to sleep and brining the ID to the surface and showing it's true intentions. Through this Freud  believed it would be impossible to eliminate aggression from anyone.

There are many people that have attacked the methods of Sigmund Freud. Scientists believe that they have proved that Freud's method were wrong as they were so vague. They had not been proved or even tested as it is impossible to tell if someone truly hates and wants to kill their own mother. It shows there is no legitimate proof that psychoanalysis works.

Freud's theories have also been the subject of constant revision. It is believed that Freud did not discover the unconscious and that it was discovered in the 19th Century in academic circles. Schopenhauer believed that man is a irrational being guided by internal forces. But, he also considered that our intellect is as a constant struggle to control our sexual urges.

The main opponent to Sigmund Frued's theories came from Reich who was the complete opposite to Freud. Reich believed that our unconscious forces inside our mind were really good and that they were suppressed by society. Much like Freud, Reich was a sexual radical and believed in unparalleled sexual  pleasures is the ultimate measure of human happiness.

Reich again used the tripartite self and felt that our personality could be seen on three different levels:

* The first level or surface level is our polite side and positive nature to society and others.
* The second level is cruel and mean and the complete opposite to the surface level where our aggression shines through.
* The third and final level of our personality is the honest, loving side, which Reich felt was hidden to almost everyone in society and is not taken into account.

There is a student slogan, which is "Their is a policeman inside our head, he must be destroyed." Well if I was to follow Sigmund Freud's method I would kill the policeman and have sex with the next attractive female I laid my eyes upon. However, we will come back to reality and realise that in the real world our aggression is not the centre of our conscious, it is only a small part of our entire personality.

Winol Week Three..... I learned a valuable lesson

After reflecting on last week, I realised that I had panicked and did not think that the best thing that I could of done was to of came in and seen if I could of salvaged anything out of my shots to meet my deadline. Well a lesson learnt and a new week to make amends, the only problem I had across the weekend was finding a story.

the start of a new week at WINOL began with the news meeting on Monday and I had found a story where Winchester City Council had announced a budget deficit of £825,000 and was looking at a story with the angle of where the money had gone and who was to blame. However, Chris Horrie suggested I went with a different angle and look at who may be affected by the deficit and the potential resulting budget cuts.

I took this advice and contacted the Winchester Church Nightshelter, a charity that had it's funding cut twice in the last three years by the city council who agreed to an interview the following afternoon. I had already arranged a interview with Councillor George Beckett, the leader of Winchester City Council to get his views on the matter.

Tuesday was straightforward as I was able to conduct both of my interviews with relative ease and gain some interesting quotes, which could be used in the story. I filmed a variety of different shots that would be used as cut away for my interviews and used throughout the story. I finished the day with recording my piece to camera and taking Angus's advice from week one, I ensured that I finished the story with my PTC and not at the beginning.

Then it came to the part of the week I am not a fan of in the slightest, editing. I was able to cut my footage down and structured the story and realised that I could finish the last few bits on Wednesday morning, so I decided to call it a night. I had noted down that I needed to film a couple more shots and record my voice over again in the morning as some of the audio in my initial voiceover was either distorted or my speech was slurred.

Wednesday morning I was able to film my last few shots and record my voice over again and thought that I had finished the story. However, I encountered a couple of legal issues as in two of my shots where number plates on cars were visible and I would have to edit the footage to ensure they were not visible. Thanks to Gareth and Will who helped me cut the shots down and delete the number plates from the clips.

This did leave me with a lack of usable shots, therefore I had to reuse a couple of my shots again, but I was able to complete my story on time and without any major problems. I was now looking forward to the bulletin at three, full of optimism and looking forwards to the comments of WINOL's guest editor for this week: Rachael Canter from BBC South.

Debrief

Rachael felt that I had a very good voice and delivery and told the story well. She advised that I could of taken further hold on my angle, I could of tried and planned ahead and tried to of filmed an interview with one of the homeless people affected as that could of possible made it the top story.

She also advised that in my piece to camera that I ensure I always keep my eyes centre down the camera as there was a moment where I looked down to check my script.  This is key as I need to ensure that I am engaging with my audience and always keep constant eye contact with the camera.

Angus Scott then gave his feedback on my story and felt again that I had an interesting, engaging voice and quoted that he can could definitely see me as "A regional BBC reported in 6 to 7 years." That was an encouraging piece of feedback, but I know not to get carried away as there is much more I have to do and I need to try and make every story better than the previous one.

He also advised that I ensure that I gain a variety of different shots in able to gain a varied aspect of the story and keep the viewer engaged. I also was told I need to ensure that when interviewing someone that I am at the same height and level as my interviewee. This was evident when I interviewed Michele Price as she was looking up at me and I need to make the interview look as natural as possible.

Other key points that I picked up from the debrief from the bulletin as an whole was to use the skill of favouring in interviews. This is where you point the gun mic to yourself when asking questions that you want to be heard. We also had another banned phrase to be added to the list and this was be the last time I will type "Only time will tell."

This week has been a much more encouraging week, but I need to ensure that I do even better with my story next week and take the feedback on board and make the changes they have advised happen.

Seminar paper on Tabloid Nation

Tabloid Nation is the story about the history of The Daily Mirror. Albert Harmsworth created The Daily Mirror on 2^nd November 1903 and was seen as the first Tabloid newspaper. Harmsworth, who was later to be known as Lord Northcliffe had already established himself as a media mogul thanks to the creation of his successful newspaper The Daily Mail in 1896.  

However, Lord Northcliffe wanted to create the first newspaper, which was “produced for and by gentlewomen.”  There were two key problems he had identified and that was Women in the early 20^th century could not write and did not have the desire to learn to read. Northcliffe wanted to change that and he hired Hamilton Fyfe, the editor of The Morning Advertiser to help make his vision a reality.

The paper was initially a disaster and Fyfe’s first job was to fire the female staff, including the Daily Mirror’s first editor, Mary Howarth who had been a close alley to Lord Northcliffe as she has wrote for the women’s page of The Daily Mail.

Lord Northcliffe learnt from an early age that the key to gaining a reader’s attention is to entice to their greatest desires and treat them as common folk by entice them with prizes, but with questions that were near enough impossible to answer.

This was achieved with the creation of his first Magazine, Answers where he would create ridiculous competitions and offers, this included where in one edition he offered reader’s £200 of free “life insurance”, which would be paid to the family of anyone killed in a railway accident. This was smart because in the beginning of the 20^th century poverty was rife and £200 was a lot of money to many people and resulted in Answers having over 700,000 for one competition and increased circulation dramatically.

Northcliffe because known as “The Chief” and he hired Kennedy “KJ” Jones to spearhead the written format of the mission. KJ had previously worked for William Randolph Hurst’s premier newspaper, The New York Morning Journal and was a very experienced journalist who was not afraid to speak his mind and this was constant throughout his stay at The Daily Mirror.

The Daily Mirror was to be written in a way to ensure that everyone would be able to read the paper and understand, which was key to Northcliffe's vision. It was not just the words that were key to the operation as Northcliffe hired Hannen Swaffer, who would save the paper and was the first photo Journalist.  The Daily Mirror became the first British newspapers to show photographs on the front page.

The April 2 1904 edition was the first edition of “the photo paper” and a picture of King Edward VII and his family trebled circulation to 71,000. Fyfe and Swaffer played to the reader’s emotions and used “tear-jerking” photos to move the reader’s and drawn their interest in.  This would change in 1907 when Fyfe left The Mirror to be replaced by another former employee of Hurst; Alexander Kenealy.

It was the words of Kenealy and the pictures of Swaffer that drove The Daily Mirror’s success forward. This included a story about a pony that was living in poor living conditions and a Mirror reporter was sent to buy the pony and rescue it. This was financed by Northcliffe and was then purchased by the Lord Mayoress of London. Again playing to the reader’s emotion, which is still the same today as any news story, which involving innocent groups like children and the elderly will sell newspapers.

Other successful tactics included Kenealy writing ridiculous stories, which any educated person would know was not true and knew that the majority of the readership would believe his every word.  The defining moment of The Daily Mirror would be on 14^th May 1910 when Swaffer had obtained photos of the body of King Edward VII and decided to use them on the front page and this resulted in a then world-recording breaking 2,013,000 copies of The Daily Mirror were sold that day.

Swaffer and Kenealy knew that they were to face severe backlash from the Royal Family, but they both liked the prospect of being held in a tower, but Queen Alexandria reacted by saying that she allowed The Mirror to print the photos as it was her” favourite paper.” This expressed two key elements of today’s Tabloid newspapers, which are the press’s fascination with the Royal Family and the duty to never reveal your sources even if it means you end up in prison.

Lord Northcliffe was starting to dislike the newspaper he founded and the tactics of Swaffer who he felt was damaging the paper reputation. This was never more so than on April 15^th 1912 when Swaffer wanted to use the every page in the newspaper to show pictures of The Titanic, which had sunk the previous evening. However, Northcliffe felt that it would be more respectful to have a well written-news story, but Swaffer had his way and every page of The Mirror had pictures of the ship, apart from the back page. This strained relationship is similar to the relationship of Charles Foster Kane and Jebediah Leland in Citizen Kane, which is ironically based on the life of William Randolph Hurst. 

After another scandal Swaffer “sacked himself”, but throughout the rest of his life he portrayed himself as “The Pope of Fleet Street” as he claimed he was “The Journalist with 20 million readers.” He will still be seen as the person who invented and established photojournalism.

Lord Northcliffe finally cut his ties from The Daily Mirror in 1910, but it was not until late 1914 on the eve of World War One where he sold his remaining shares to his Brother Lord Rothermere for £100,000. Northcliffe was to try his hand at politics, much like his American namesake Hurst, but much like Hurst his attempted failed and he was to be greatly affected by mental problems throughout the rest of his life until his death on August 14 1922.

Unlike his brother Lord Rothermere did not care for Journalism and was only interested in making money out of his latest business acquisition. World War One would turn out to be his benefactor as sales of the paper grew from 1.2 to 1.7 million copies daily and thanks to Hannen Swaffer’s apprentice, Guy Bartholomew the pictures in The Daily Mirror painted the true picture of the war for the eyes of the British People. 

After the war, The Daily Mirror suffered under the cost-cutting measure of Rothermere and was neglected, lost it’s northern premises and was again seen as the forgot member of Rothermere Media Empire.

The Free Gift War in 1922 damaged The Daily Mirror as their rival The Daily Herald try to obtain readers by any means necessary and this included giving free gifts to draw readers in at any cost. This tactic would be copied by all of the other national newspapers in The United Kingdom and for Rothermere this meant protecting his key investment, The Daily Mail and left The Daily Mirror neglected.

Rothermere started to invest his money in paper mills across the Atlantic in Canada, but in 1929 The Wall Street Crash demolished all of his profits and William Randolph Hurst was forced to close many of his newspapers. Rothermere was also affected and realised he had to keep his money direct towards The Daily Mail.

The reputation of The Daily Mirror was changed in 1931 when Lord Rothermere started to broadcast his fascist views in his newspapers and formed the United Empire political party. He had been influenced by several trips to Germany where he attended the rallies of Nazi leader, Adolf Hitler, who he also befriend. Rothermere would reflect these views to his political propaganda, which he foliated in The Daily Mirror and The Daily Mail.

It was not until 1934 when The Daily Mirror was given a true burst of life when Harry Guy Bartholomew created the “Bartland”, which was a system that allowed photos to be sent through radio wires and established links between Britain and America. This was the groundwork for what would be the restoration of The Daily Mirror in the vision of “Bart.”

Lord Northcliffe, Lord Rothermere, William Randolph Hearst and Charles Foster Kane were all men who were at one time or another was a leader of mass media empires. They all strived to be the voice of the people and too have their political vision made reality. However, all of them even though one is fictional would realise that this dream was simply just that and that all they wanted was to be respected by everyone. What they have all done thought in film and reality is establishing the Tabloid newspaper that we read today. 

WINOL dummy edition..... We are experiencing some technical difficulties

Well it has been nice to have a chance to relax as it's the weekend and the weather is the best I've seen it all summer.... The bulk of this week has been learning and getting to grips with the experience of Winchester News Online and this week I have learnt a lot of lessons.

My overall experience of my first week is to take nothing for granted and everything that could of possibly gone wrong this week went wrong. However, it was a positive as it allowed me to feel what it is like to be a news reporter under pressure and I have realised how fast-paced and demanding the role is. I knew that my role as Political Correspondent would be very demanding and luckily my background knowledge into local politics helped me out.

I think was overall news package was below-average, but I did not expect to come shooting out the blocks on my first week and needed to make the mistakes to show where I needed to improve. I felt that the interview was the strongest part of the story and would like to thank Julie for helping me film. Councillor Stephen Godfrey was very helpful as he was straight to the point and explained the true extent of the parking permit issue. The wind did effect the sound quality, but then you can not always control the weather sometimes, but it is key that the gun mic is used in most instances as it can guard from certain weather conditions.

The main problem I had was with my choice of camera shots as most of my shots were either out-of-focus or were blue, which was down to me not correcting the white balance for every shot. This stopped me from using many of my shots and left me to use only a few of the shots, but I did not get the key shots and the subject of the new story. Therefore, I need to ensure that I use a variety of key shots, which establish the story for the viewer to understand when they are watching.

The camera problems I had meant that I had to increase the duration of my piece to camera. I felt that my piece to camera was very weak in the fact I felt that I should of looked more closely at the camera and needed to keep my eye focused and not squinted. The positive from the piece to camera I felt was my voice over as I felt I explained the story and that the voice training I did over the summer had worked as have tried to remove my voice of it's regional tone and accent.

After the first "dummy" edition of WINOL we all went back into Tab where Angus gave his overall opinions on the first edition and gave the reporters some key advice on what not to do in our next news story. This included:

* Do not start your story with a piece to camera.
* Don't say "I talked to".
* Ensure the white balance is sorted and the focus is settled before you film your shots.
* Use a range of different camera shots and keep them relevant to the topic of your news story.
* Do not use more than 12 seconds of footage per interview.
* Keep your audio constant throughout.
* Get another member of the WINOL team to read direct quotes.

This week has been a challenge and I hope that I have learnt from the mistakes and will ensure my story for next week is nailed on and will impress the first guest editor.