Winol Week 1-3: The Dummy Edition.... Chapter 1 of the Political Diaries

I am back at the the training base of Winchester News Online and after the first couple week's of a refresher course into both the reporting and technical aspects of being a video journalist, which we had been lacking last year, it was time and ready for the first dummy edition of WINOL. With a semester of reporting in my back pocket, it was refreshing to be back reporting, but it a more important role of Chief Reporter and Political Editor. This means that I am the "fireman" of WINOL, which means that if there are any breaking news events in Winchester and the surrounding areas, I will be assigned to this story as I do not have one designated patch.

I also have that freedom to research and carry out my own political stories, as after a semester of being Local Government reporters, I felt it was time to take my political reporting to the next level and move onto from reporting on local council issues to national parliamentary issues, including interviewing the local MP's across Hampshire and hopefully within the Coalition cabinet as the week's progress.

Within the first two week's, I was able to establish my first two news stories and I will not dwell on the 2nd until next week. So my first story for our "dummy edition" focused on the ongoing debate of supermarkets building within traditional market towns and the stance of one local Hampshire MP who is trying to allows communities to have more freedom on choosing if they want supermarkets to be built in their local community.

I went to Westminster on the first Tuesday back to interview Conservative MP for Meon Valley; George Hollingbery. The interview with Mr Hollingbery went very well as he provided my with a number of very good grabs and with his background being a member of the Select Committee for Communities and Local Government is made the interview easier. This was helped with relaxed atmosphere, which is key when interviewing important figures such as MP's, therefore you need to treat them as any other person and not become nervous or overwhelmed.

This was the groundwork finished and now I had to find balance for my story and tried to contact Sainsburys who were building a store within Bishop's Waltham; A "exceptional town" as described by George Hollingbery, which is within his constituency. They were very helpful, but I was unable to secure an interview as they did not want to comment for the entire supermarket trade on a national issue.

They did back me onto the BRC (British Retail Consortium) who again could not provide anyone for an interview because the Business Director was on holiday, but they were kinda enough to provide a statement from him. Now I know that we strive not use statements on WINOL, but I felt and was agreed by my News Editor, I had tried all relevant channels and this was now in "exceptional circumstances."

Now we move onto this week and I missed Monday's debrief in order to reinterview Caroline Ford from CPRE (Campaign to Protect Rural England) Hampshire who lived close to Bishops Waltham to get her views on how these new supermarkets builds would affect the local economy and trade. The initial problem with the original interview was the sounds quality, but this time the interview was washed out and this was just the beginning of the technical problems.

I was able to gain all of my gv's across Monday and Tuesday and then felt that I had gained enough shots to establish and make a very effective story. This is where my problems began though because we have decided to start filming WINOL in 16'9, instead of 4'3 to bring ourselves up to industry standards and make the overall visual quality of the broadcast easier on the eye (I will not deny I have had to squint when I have full-screened WINOL last semester on YouTube).

This meant that I had to change the initial camera settings before filming, but when it came to editing it seems that I had not done this for some of my filming and made an initial problem with editing on Final Cut. What I did not also realise it that I had left a gap in the tape, which meant that the timecode would be completely out of sync, Which meant It took longer to edit and having to swap between using the tape deck and the camera.

After hours of stress, I was able to put the story together and many thanks to Henry for helping me with editing, which I will still admit is a weakness I need to possibly get more training on in order to make sure I meet the deadline, which I did unfortunately miss and in a real news room that would mean the story would have been spiked.

I will not go into my story into too much details, but will bullet point what I felt where the strengths and weaknesses in my piece:

Strength

* My voice- I have been working on my voice over the Christmas break and after feedback from fellows Journo's It seem that I have made my voice stronger, but at the same time taken myself out of the story to make my view more unbiased.
* Gv's: I felt this is where my weakness was last semester as I did not have any interesting GV's that stood out and were memorable. Even though this sentiment was the same this week, I was able to put a sequence together and felt my shots were stronger than at the end of last semester.

Weaknesses

Interviews/framing: My framing again this week was not as well framed as it could of been. My interview with George Hollingbery should have been framed more left, then centre-left. But, I feel this was recovered by the backdrop as it was in a relevant location to the story. My second interview with Caroline Ford should not of been broadcast. We should always strive to make every story 10/10 and the washed out interview did disappoint me, but I will strive to ensure I do not let any of my stories look average or second-best.

Editing: I again need to realise that editing can sometimes take longer and when you change to different settings, you should strive to take a bit longer to edit and ask for help if needed. I feel another couple of training sessions on Final Cut will help me in the long run.

I will not dwell on the bulletin overall for now and I will make more notes after tomorrow's debrief. I am looking forward to my story next week as I have got the interview and the GV's, it just needs to be edited and checked to ensure that every angle is covered to make sure there is key balance. On and upwards to next week and also my first chance to present Sportsweek (It only took a semester of badgering)!

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.

Have you seen the new map of the United Kingdom? It is painted Blue

Well it has been a long and turbulent summer and I thought it was finally time that I did a blog. With my impending role as Political Correspondent on Winchester News online drawing ever closer, today's events was the perfect excuse to begin my own form of political satire.

The General Election of 2015 will see the biggest change in the Commons in over a century. The proposed plans to slash the number of MPs by 50 to 600 in 2015 and will see each constituency have nearly the same number of voters. The proposals will see a radical shakeup in constituency boundaries with some seats being merged, some new seats being created and some lost altogether.

The proposed changes have seen some of the leading members of the Coalition Government positions come under threat. These include Chancellor George Osborne for the Conservatives, Business Secretary Vince Cable and Energy Minister Chris Huhne for the Liberal Democrats and Shadow Cabinet members Ed Balls and Tessa Jowell for Labour.

I will come back to the changes to the political landscape in the South later, but I would like to focus on one MP whose constituency boundaries have not changed, Prime Minister David Cameron. It is not surprising that the Prime Minister’s constituency, Witney is not affected by any of the changes proposed. However, it is The Liberal Democrats within the coalition government who are who are the worst affected in these changes. For the 77 MPs whose seats are not affected it is another day at the office, but for the remaining 583 MPs it is time to reapply for their own job.

Now let's take a closer look at how the proposed changes will affect the political landscape in the South. Across Hampshire and the Isle of Wight there will be many changes to political constituencies these will include the formation of the new seat for Hamble and Hedge End, as well as the lost seats of Romsey and Southampton North and Meon Valley to be replaced by the new constituencies of New Forest East and Romsey and Fareham and Horndean. This means that MPs like Caroline Noakes and George Hollingbery may lose their jobs. In the case where two political constituencies will merge into one, MPs who lose their seats will have the chance to contest to be representative of the newly formed constituency in the next General Election.

There are also MPs who will gain and lose political wards in the boundary change. These include the Eastleigh constituency, which is currently held by Chris Huhne. The changes will see Huhne lose nearly half the voters in the Eastleigh seat and will gain around 39,000 from the surrounding Southampton Itchen and Winchester constituencies. This has made Chris Huhne one of the MPs most at risk of losing their seats in the next General Election.

In Hampshire one of the major changes, which has baffled me, is the change to the structure of the two Southampton seats and the newly formed seat of Hamble and Hedge End. In my constituency of Southampton Itchen the proposed changes would see the loss of the Bitterne ward, which includes the Thornhill area Southampton and the inclusion of the Bevois ward.

This is where I feel the proposed changes will have a negative effect because it will see areas of the city being represented by a completely different area outside of the city boundary and with these changes will it mean that the next changes will be the boundaries to local councils and unitary authorities.

What is clear is that the bias, which has affected the political landscape of the United Kingdom for over half a century, has still not been changed. The pledge of the government to have a fairer boundary limit were all MPs constituencies would be represented by roughly the same amount of people has not been changed. The government has said that the changes will say £12 million a year but in reality it is the equivalent of a large-scale restructuring plan and Conservative corporate takeover.

MPs who are most at risk and are now staring defeat in the face will now have to decide whether to contest the proposed changes in the 12 week consultancy period up to the end of December or face having to reapply for a new constituency. However, this could see MPs moving to an area where they can beat their fellow colleague to a “safe seat."  

If this is the case then I would advise that all Conservative MPs that Devon and Cornwall may be a nice place to move house from within the foreseeable future and any Labour MP that is looking to secure their job in the next General Election to set their Sat Nav to find the quickest route to Sunderland as soon as possible.

Within the next 12 weeks we will see arguing and moaning of every MP who feels that these changes could see them out of a job and joining the unemployment line. These changes were laid out to ensure there was a less biased political structure within the House of Commons, but it looks as if the real winners are the Conservatives who are likely to take a stranglehold within the House of Commons if the boundary commission's plans to England put in place.

If I was David Cameron then I would not be worried about losing his job at the next general election as it may be the case that the Conservatives will become the sole party in charge at 10 Downing Street. For many MPs today, their future may be summed up in the words of Conservative MP, Andrew Percy who has joked “I’m looking for a job.”  If I were Andrew Percy, I would hope I’m not eating those words in a year’s time. 

The futures bright, the future is Conservative... Possibly a steal of copyright, but this is what we could be waking up to the morning of the General Election in 2015.