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!

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.

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.