Winol Week 8.....Everything went right and then we had a wonky collar

Week 8 and I felt that this week was my best week to date as I felt that I took good story that after countless number of technical problems and interview time changes, was resurrected at the last minute.

The week started with the usual news meeting where I pitched my story, which would cover the plans for Southampton City Council to implement commissioning of services, but these changes were being seen as a chance to privatise the council, according to local unions. I was able to obtain an interview with Councillor Royston Smith, leader of Southampton City Council and Mike Tucker, Branch Secretary for Unison Southampton.

I had a series of problems on Tuesday with my equipment, which included my camera not working, the battery dying, not taking the right tripod and changing cameras. However, after 3 trips, back and forth from Winchester to Southampton, I brought Tom with me as I had arranged an interview with a local Green Councillor for his story. Luckily at the last minute, I received a phone call from Southampton City Council's press office and they had arranged for my to meet Councillor Smith.

I felt this was my best interview to date, as Councillor Smith was very vocal in his opinions to defend the council and attack the union's claims. This left me with Wednesday morning to do all my filming of my Gv's, my piece to camera and the second interview with Mike Tucker. Just your usual Wednesday morning at Winol

After a morning of rushing around, I returned to the new room with two hours to editing my piece together and hand a headline clip in.  I finished my package and was given in time. I felt that my overall package this week was my best to date as the interviews I had gave two very good soundbites, as well as continuity as this was the first time I used two part of one interview to use as counter balance to the ongoing debate between Southampton City Council and the local unions.

There was still some issues with the overall piece. I felt that Gv's I used could have been stronger, however I was on my own and worked to a very tight deadline, therefore it was good with the limited amount of time I had. My second interview with Mike Tucker was framed well, but he was looking directly into the camera as if he was being interrogated and I need to ensure that they are looking at me to make the piece look more natural. The final gripe I had was the most annoying as my piece to camera was confident, I kept constant eye contact with the camera, but my collar was wonky. This made me look scruffy and unprofessional and I may take Angus Scott's advice from now and take a mirror with me to ensure I do not look scruffy.

Now to the bulletin, I feel we are getting stronger with our overall content and focus to our primary and secondary demographic. In terms of the bulletin it was good to have the Vice-Chancellor, Joy Carter as it promotes the University in a positive light and in any news institution if you can have an important figure within the organisation (in this case The University of Winchester) in the bulletin, you do it as it the best way to reach your target audience. We also included an in-studio discussion about the rise in youth unemployment, which was again good as we were target the demographic.

However, we should of known in advance and made a package about an important topic to students, as they will be interested in job prospects after graduating. We finally had a court story, but it was not a broadcast news story as it was about a local paedophile and we only had a mug shot and as it involved a minor we could not divulge many details. This would of worked better as an OOV, but it was good that Flick found a story in her patch.

Overall Winol is going from strength to strength as we are targeting our demographic audience's and grabbing their attention with good stories. We just need to ensure that we are focusing on getting the most detail out of every story and keeping the audience engaged every week. With the impending and now success of the 30th November national strike protest broadcast in history, we did not have a Winol bulletin last week and therefore my next Winol review will be the rolling coverage of the strikes!

30th November Coverage Final Guest lists and timetable

Right guys after a million phone calls and e-mails, here is is the final guest list for Winol's coverage of the November 30th National Strike tomorrow. There may be updates if guests drop out, so everything is subject to change:

Right this is the final guest list for tomorrow and time slots, barring any last minute changes or inclusions 

12.00-13.00: Seb Miell (Winchester Student Union President) and Ross England (Winchester Student-Conservative)-student debate over strikes

13.00-14.00: Alan Rickman: Chairman of TACT Winchester (Tenants and Residents Together)- Effect of strike on local residents. 

14.00-15.00: Ian Woodland (Unite South-East regional co-ordinator) and Councillor Richard Williams (Labour opposition leader for Southampton City Council) 

15.00-16.00: Councillor Keith House (Liberal Democrat leader of Eastleigh Borough Council and oppositional leader at Hampshire County Council)

16.00-17.00: Tim Cutter (Unison Hampshire Branch Secretary) and Pete Sopowski (National Teacher's Union Southampton Secretary, as well as a possibility of local headteacher's from Southampton/Surrounding areas 

17.00-18.00: No guests at the moment, but will mainly be used for round-up of day's events 

Pre-recorded Interviews:

Winchester-Tommy Geddes (Deputy Vice Chancellor-University of Winchester: Interview with Ulduuz and Michael Connolly in Conference room at Half 10)

Southampton- Councillor Royston Smith (Conservative leader of Southampton City Council: Interview with Ali and Aaron at 10am at Southampton Civic Centre)

Mike Tucker (Unison Branch Secretary Southampton-Interview with Ali and Aaron at Guildhall Square at half 9)

Still awaiting confirmation from Winchester City Council in regards to guests or a pre-recorded interview with Council Leader George Beckett. 

If anyone has a contact who they can get in as a guest at any time tomorrow, let me know ASAP as we have a spare hour to fill if we broadcast for that long as the news develops and if demand is needed

Winol Week 7: A review of this week and Winol so far....

This week was good as I bounced back from last week's problems and got a story that delivered.

On Monday in the news meeting, I explained my story this week, which would be an update on the ongoing debate of the housing development of Barton Farm in North Winchester with the angle of showing how Winchester City Council need the development to meet it's housing pledge. I would balance this with another topic, which came out of the question-time style forum, which again sparked the debate with the council ignoring the location and worrying about the priority of building affordable housing and more council housing in Winchester.

Tuesday was very straight forward as I had my two interview sorted with Councillor Leader George Beckett from Winchester City Council and Patrick Davies, a former city councillor and Labour parliamentary candidate for Winchester. What I needed to ensure was I got some good shots and GV's as I felt this is where I had been lacking in my previous packages. I was lucky that I stubbled across a few good locations for long shots of housing and that the shots for Barton Farm were easy and accessible.

I finished filming my shots and edited the package together, knowing I would only have to record a short piece to camera in the morning to summarise the piece. I filmed the PTC on Wednesday morning, but due to the location and the lighting, I had to edit the colour to make it look more natural as the light made me look yellow in the footage.

Then I had to help finish Tom's sculpture mystery piece by filming a few more GV'S of the sculpture from different angle and obtain Vox-Pops from students on their opinions of the sculpture and what they thought it could be. This was then edited together, but it was spiked from the final bulletin as it was revealed close to air-time that the university press office has discovered the sculpture was in fact a wind chime and had found out who created the piece (Personally this was another last minute discovery by the press office who seem to be the thorn in our sides....this thorn seems to be hard to get rid of as well!)

In the Debrief, Angus thought that my piece was good with good pictures, however the scripting was sloppy as the link confused the angle of the story. I did not use the most relevant, up-to-date information until my PTC at the end and that was needed in the opening few words to allow the viewers to gain the latest angle of the story. News needs to be up-to-date and should not be dated, therefore it is essential that every package, even if the story is ongoing starts with the newest, most relevant information.

Angus also felt that I needed to be careful with my shots as one of my shots was a sudden,violent zoom out as it can make the piece look untidy. Again the problem with the speed of my voiceover was mentioned, however this was balance as I again show good inflection and intonation in my voice. I know that I need to try and have move voice training in order to help gain the right pace to my voice as I know that I have perfected the pitch and tone of it, but this will come with constant practice.

What I have not been doing is reviewing WINOL as an overall piece and I will now each week make a critical reflection of my own piece and the bulletin as a whole. I felt that this week's bulletin was good, however there was not eye-catching pictures or any story that leapt out and screamed WATCH ME!!!!

We did try another new element this week, with a live Skype feed from London with Tom who was covering the national student demonstration against tuition fees, but the sound quality was not good, therefore it was decided that the bulletin would run with the pre-recorded piece. It is good thought because we are trying new things everything week and adding these new elements that will help in the long run as WINOL is primarily a training camp to help fine tune our crafts to help us be the most-trained, employable Journalist when we graduate.

The bulletin was solid thought as all of the stories had balance and we are starting to gain the quotes we needs from our stories to make them relevant and make the viewers want to tune in, but we need to remain focused on our target demographic as the bulletin has in places started to sway away from focusing on students and more to what is going on in Winchester for local residents in the city

This week was good as we had a balance of stories, focusing on both our primary and secondary demographic. It is key that we keep this up in order to obtain the largest number of viewers possible as it reflect in the number of views on youtube and the traffic to the WINOL website. Overall so far, the bulletins which have gained the largest numbers of viewers have either been due to us sticking to the targeted demographics or because we have had a story, which has been an exclusive (Julie's investigative piece on Hampshire Police) or with a high-profile personality (Steve Brine).

I think that WINOL is going in the right direction, we need to keep the balance of stories every week, but now need to focus on the pictures and making every story interesting and eye-grabbing for our viewers. I know we all can achieve that goal with the looming November 30th National Strike coverage being the centre stage for that challenge.

Winol week 6: The tale of two press offices

I am going to be honest and say I was not happy at all with my work this week as I felt that I had a good story, but was restricted by the lack of interviews and balance for my story.

Over the week I knew I wanted to do a story, which would centre around the closure of the November 30th November 30th National Strike. I came into the news meeting on Monday looking at the story and feeling that I wanted to get the two side of the story across with the side of the trade unions and why they are striking and also the defence of the council, who feel that it is unfair for local residents who could potentially be affected by these strikes.

I was able to secure an interview again with Tim Cutter rom Unison Hampshire, but was having problem trying to obtain an interview with Councillor Ken Thornber, leader of Hampshire County Council as their press office said the council would not comment on the matter until the result had been released. I decided to try and e-mail every member of the County Council cabinet in order to get a response and hoped that Tuesday would be a better day.

How I was completely wrong, Tuesday was a nightmare to say the least as I came into the newsroom to try and find a different contact to obtain a interview with to balance the story, I received a phone call from a private number (Everyone has that fear when a private number comes up). I answered my mobile and it was a press office at Hampshire County Council who immediately started to have a massive go at me for trying to contact the councillors directly because they had already sent the council's response.

But, as a journalist it is my job to try and get the news across, so I tried every resource I had in my arsenal to try and obtain a interview. After consulting with Becky and Brian Thornton, I decided to construct a polite, but heavily worded e-mail to the press officer explaining that in a previous trip to the council's offices in my first year, we met Councillor Thornber who advised that if we ever needed help or advise on a story to contact him. After sending the e-mail I got in contact with Winchester City Council who said I would be able to interview their council leader, George Beckett later on that afternoon.


I went off to conduct my interview with Tim Cutter, which I felt was better than the last one as I was able to get the quote I wanted with him having a go at the local councils and the government and explaining how it was "the final kick in the teeth for the unions." After returning from the interview, I found a e-mail from the press officer and in one second I had a massive grin on my face as she had apologised and tried to defend her actions about what she said in our previous conversation. This was the one battle I did win this week and the final score was Louis O'Brien 2:Press Office 1

However, I had to find an alternative interview, because Lee had also obtained an interview with Councillor Beckett and this made more sense as his story on the bin collection problems was a problem centred to The City Council and my story was centred to the County Council. At the last minute when I thought my story was near enough spiked, I received a phone call from Councillor Thornber, but he only had the time to talk for a telephone interview and therefore I had to go with my last resort and use a statement to summarise his views.

Wednesday I was able to obtain the rest of my GV's in the morning and edit them into the piece I had started on Tuesday night, but I still had to do my piece to camera and thanks to Tom he helped me produce what I felt was my best PTC to date as my eyes were not distracted and were centred down the camera and made me not look shifty, but confident.

I edited the final piece together and knew that even with the statement (which is not a banned feature in our story unless in a emergency) there was a lack of balance to the story. Becky watched the story and agreed that their was no balance from the council's and therefore I had my first story spiked at WINOL.

It was not the best feeling in the world, but I completely understand that the story did lack balance and that in all without the second interview from Hampshire County Council the story was weak, but what I will take out of this week is that I feel I have become more comfortable in front of the camera and I will do everything it takes to try and get a story across and this is one of the key elements of a journalist to take risk in order to make a story work.

Hopefully next week I will come back fighting with a better story, but this week was a personal victory against the press office and all over press office's beware, I will not take no for an answer or take kindly to any rudeness as It will end in a kindly worded e-mail!