WINOL - (www.winol.co.uk) has only been getting better and better this semester, our Alexa rank has has completely skyrocketed, at the time of writing this (21/ 5/13) our Alexa ranking for winol.co.uk is 88,939 in the UK and 550,042 worldwide. Our rivals, East London Lines, currently stand at 48,225 in the UK and 682,835 worldwide. We seem to have had a lull in our ranking as we have only produced one bulletin since we all got back from Easter break, which was on the 7th of May 2013, over April the site would've been ignored as we were all off at home with hardly anything new being added save a few features perhaps.
However, earlier in the year we were thrashing East London Lines, our site was being updated every day with new stories being put up as soon as we heard of them, it was a phenomenal turn around for student Journalist and our weekly bulletins were raking in the views, gaining around 200 - 300 views for each of our bulletins.
We brought further success by conducting a live show dedicated to the Eastleigh by-Election, this ran all night and had the results announced live as they came through from our team sent to the counting. This was a massive political feat for students to accomplish - we had political guests in the studio, a fantastic team of presenters who overcame the obstacles of presenting live and phenomenal reporters out there getting the information.
My role for WINOL from January to May has been the Community Correspondent, for a couple of weeks a political reporter and I got to put my grammatical and English language skills to the test by being on the website side of things for a change as I was acting as a dedicated sub for the website which means I was checking the language and format of articles being submitted to the site with Sam Ashton.
As Community Correspondent I was in a very similar position as I was last year as the Entertainments Reporter but I found that this role was far more diverse, which I found very appealing. This year I got my first stab at real news stories - my main news story was about Hampshire Council petitioning to ban wind farms on Council owned lands. I did this story as an update, two reporters had done it previously - Felicity Houston and Ellen Millard, their work allowed for me to cover this story which I am very grateful for.
Being very confident in my English language and writing skills I happily put myself forward to aid in the act of being a 'website sub' this meant that when reporters would get their stories every week they would write it up and submit it to the site through a very wonderful system which checks the facts and potency of the story - it is all done through WordPress and is a very nice touch.
This submission process was a great addition - what we do as subs for the website is read through the information that the reporters have filled out in the provided boxes; ranging from the source of the story (so we can see if people are lifting stories or not) to a ranking of how good of a quote the reporter has received from the story. From there we read what they have written and then we must thoroughly check the story they've written for any fatal errors, format problems and to make sure they are using the correct grammar, we make any necessary changes and then put them up on the website.
I myself have subbed many stories for the website and have done so with complete confidence they are correct I wouldn't have been able to do this without the work put in by Sam Ashton - he created a how-to guide for the website; it included format, font, tags and just the overall style of the website so it is consistent, for example how we enter numbers - the number or the spelling of the number - and where the reporters name goes; at the top or the bottom of the story. It is an invaluable asset of information and I'm confident it will help the website for a very long time.
This semester I found that again I was filling the 'and finally' spot of the bulletin - a highly sought after place in the bulletin. However, the first story this semester was a proper news story, but it fell through entirely. The story was that there were plans for a new school, a super school. I had 2 fixed interviews cancel on me thanks to the adverse weather and I was not allowed access to any pictures of the plans. This was a horrendous start to the semester and it put me back on my heels a bit.
The week after I my story was about the wind farm ban on Council owned lands in a place called Bullington Cross. This story would not have been possible if it wasn't for Faith Thomas being able to drive me to the location as it was a good 20 miles outside of Winchester and I had no way of reaching it. This goes to show that WINOL is very much a team effort, we all depend on each other to an extent and we all can work as one hell of a great team when put together. I receive good feedback from my peers with this story, I started with a piece to camera which is usually not necessary but it was praised, said to do it's job very well. My interviews had balance - I spoke to two environmental groups; one the Friends of the Earth spokesman and the other, a spokesman from Keep Hampshire Green.
Previously, my voice was dreadful, I had so many problems with sound and projecting my voice, maybe it was due to being somewhat shy at the time but I definitely have flourished this year in terms of my confidence and it has shown through in my contributions. Some other criticisms I've had were with filming, however, over this semester I took my time to learn all the camera functions and just kept practicing with it and my affinity with the JVC cameras has reached great heights.
Hampshire was hit by a storm, a storm in the shape of Chris Huhne and the massive scandal surrounding him. This was phenomenal for us as a news outlet - the subsequent by-election brought the biggest political names to Eastleigh. I conducted a poll, the WINOL 100, around the University of Winchester to find out who, if students could, they would vote for. I did this poll two weeks in a row and both times asked 100 people the same thing. In previous elections people had gone for the Liberal Democrats, but my poll found the vote for Labour revived and a huge collapse of faith in the Liberal Democrats.
Chris Ship, our Guest Editor on Feb 3rd 2013 and Political Editor for ITV advised me to match my words with the pictures. To begin with I was talking about the Labour vote in my poll when the Conservative data was showing and so on. So I re-tried until it was perfect to which he praised greatly - it had good tempo and it was bang on with the timing.
The story I'm most proud of covering was of Derek, a teddy bear sent into space.
This particular 'and finally' may well be my crowning achievement. I was so happy to cover this, the key thing to this story was the access I was given by the team that organised it. They allowed me to use the footage of the journey that was captured which made the story but I still put in the work to receive it. People in the news room we're genuinely interested to see this and I had people crowding my desk to watch. This story gained 148 views, which is my highest viewed packaged that I've produced for WINOL.
I thoroughly enjoyed this story, I went full throttle with it because it was just so amazing, it had reference to 2001 Space Odyssey in the intro, the Moon landing and it was riddled with puns - really everything an 'and finally' should be.
Derek was a tough act to follow for the spot of 'and finally' but I'm confident I pulled the rabbit out of the hat on this one... almost literally. My story was about Heidi, a Continental Giant rabbit that has arthritis and so has been encouraged to take up swimming to help ease pressure on her joints.
This proved a challenge to get to though as the story was all the way in Milford, quite a distance away from Winchester - I would have never been able to get there if it wasn't for Matt Spencer being able to drive me there and I would not have been able to film it if I didn't get in touch with the owner as early as I did - my organisation for this story set the precedent for me really, all of my stories should be this well planned ahead and I will now continue to do this.
I am brimming with pride on this 'and finally' it just delivered on all fronts, it was adorable, it was funny and it pulled the heart strings. It was a wonderful thing to witness as well, I enjoyed myself so much. I was especially proud of the puns I worked into the scripting of the voice over and I've been credited by my peers as to being great at scripting.
Along with everything else I've done this year, we all had a week each to be the News Editor for WINOL. My time as the News Editor was exceedingly rewarding to me. I got one hell of an experience from it. The week I was the Editor we had lined up for the bulletin the power houses of political figures - we had Miliband, Prime Minister Cameron and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg. If that wasn't enough to make a phenomenal bulletin we had rumors circulating our people that the Mayor of London, the one and only Boris Johnson was going to make an appearance in Eastleigh.
Naturally, I wanted him to get into the bulletin at any cost. It was cut so close in the end, I had a team of reporters - Matt Spencer, Faith Thomas and Luke Garratt on standby to race to Eastleigh when they caught wind of Boris. There came a time nearing our deadline that things were looking dire, there was no sign of Boris and our reporters were being fed false information. It was cut so close that I was ready to forget putting him in the bulletin, but just as I was going to tell them to come back, to forget it, they called me up and they had been successful.
The features section of WINOL is astounding. The features team have progressed in leaps and bounds - ranging from the amazing fashion magazine Absolute:ly to the highly in depth New Winchester Review. The fashion magazine instantly draws you in, the images are striking and the huge banner at the top of the page is an eye catching way to intrigue readers.
The New Winchester Review just oozes culture - it is an amazing addition to WINOL which shows a very profound and romantic way of writing - it contains the likes of Theater and Opera reviews, something that you will most likely never find in a student lead operation. The font, the logo and the layout are all very striking - they will be remembered and they will be looked at. It's as they say: people come for the news and stay for the features.
I have had a phenomenal time on WINOL this semester and I'm extremely proud to be part of the News team here, I cannot wait to see this wonderful site grow and flourish as it no doubt will over the years.
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